Ember
by Let-There-Be-Rain
Summary: A lonely, unwanted girl is sent away to a remote place at the far end of the country: there, she meets the eccentric Lady Opal, the enigmatic Gold, and an altogether new life. One of my first faery tales, somewhat a retold of the Ugly Duckling.
1. Chapter 1

**Prelude (prelude, or, in other words, introduction, or Author's Note. Do not use my new expression, or if you want to, send me two pounds. Yup, this, ladies and gentlemen, is a copyright. Perfectly sir!)**

**So, um, here is the first chapter of this tale. I would like to give a plea, and a warning: the plea is that you may review. I just need to know what people think about what I write. And my warning is: there are some things you may not understand with what's happening, and if there isn't any explanation in the next chapters, well, I can't do nothing, because I myself probably don't know. Nevertheless, do not hesitate to write to me.**

**Anyway: read and enjoy. And review…**

**Chapter the One**

**Tal-Narra**

It was a decaying gothic mansion, carved in the outside in old pictures, too old, really, to see what they were supposed to be originally. The spider webs and incrusted dry leaves in the cracks had given the carved creature utterly bizarre airs, as sinister as strange, and the two trees that grew at either sides of the tall, massif wooden door were so old, so twisted, there leafs so cracked and rotten, and strangely chiselled-looking, that the gloom was total; the manor seemed like a place of phantoms and dooms. Situated very far away from the village at the bottom of the landscape's sharp, long slope; protected from the rest of the world by a living gate of trees, which stretched in a wide crescent of massif, guard-looking greyish oaks, and backed with a dangerous forest no one had yet explored, it was overhanged with the heavy dark grey sky, and standing in the middle of a real, nearly touch-like current of chilling, horrifying cold. The animals in the surroundings were wolves, only to be heard, strange, squawking birds, of inky colours, prowling cats, black cats, cats that puzzled with their living in such places.

It was an ideal place for tragic romance, for doomed loves, for ruthless vampires, for ghost dramas, a place a lot of Ladies of the Novelettes would have longed to live in. Yet, when the luxurious coach pulled down the half-erased, great steep road, Ember's cold grey eyes didn't reflect any excitement whatsoever. She knew well enough that her parents had exiled her, and the fact that she wasn't wanted didn't thwart her, it was more her parents' actually sending her away that had so much hurt her feelings.

Ember pulled away from the thin-glassed window, sitting back in the comfortable chair, and snapped the little curtains shut. She grudged the landscape being so dreary, for dreariness she had already seen, like many other things: colour she had tossed away, laughter she had scorned, joy she had been kept away from while benefiting from a beautiful view of it, sadness she had bitterly endured, hate had been her mother, love she had buried away, light she had enjoyed, then discarded for boredom: in her parents' magnificent domains, she had been able to do nearly all she wished, and now she was left wry and old morally, while her body, which had for a while possessed the blossom of youth, was finally withering with her heart: at sixteen, she was tall, not fat enough to be slim, with a face that no blush came to light, a skin as white as chalk, sickly white, eyes wide and as cold a grey as the cruellest fog, lips colourless and thin, a nose as sharp as a blade and slightly pointed, hair she plaited away negligently, hair as black as the deepest, coldest night, black as despair, as ink, as jet, as a raven, with scraggy ends, hanging silky and wild down the straight back past a nearly impossibly fine waist, and down graceless, craggy hips. The legs were long and thin, so were the incredibly skinny, white arms. The hands, however, were beautiful; all the beauty forsaken from the poor, feeling-less face had been given to the hands, long fine, spidery, white, bewitching, light as fluttering, aerial butterfly wings, lightly translucent over the greenblue veins. Her hands, however, she hid in gloves of silk, for she always believed that the beauty of the hands had been given only to outline even more the ugliness of the ghastly face.

The coach suddenly came to a shaky stop, and Ember, without any preamble, slammed open the lustrous, smooth wooden door, and jumped gracelessly down. The coachman had already taken down both her two effect-cases, and had awkwardly dragged them up the thirteen stairs to the door, which had open wide, revealing the one that would be Ember's tutor for the few years to come.

She was tall. Slim, with a huge amount of the most dazzling white hair ever seen, piled up in an elegant heap over her face, and hanged with strings of chiselled jet-stones and glittery garnets that slithered in and out of the hair, over the tall, broad white brow, the temples, and the small ears; this woman had something puzzling about her, and this was the fact that she seemed to have no age. Her hair was completely, snowy white, yet the wrinkles on her face could only but outline the small, very neat red mouth, and the narrow, dark slits of emerald that seemed incrusted in her marmoreal face. Her stature was healthy and full of energy.

And she was dressed like queen. An elven queen, straight from the most fantastical tales and legends. First, a layer of elegantly crumpled, pearly white silk, with sleeves hanging loose and large from the elbows to the knuckles, and tightened around the waist with a lace-trimmed, dark orange corset. The white overdress stopped at half-thigh, opening form the front, and hanging lower behind the knees, and under it was a layer of dark blue silk, like the first one, with a royally crumpled air, and edges that had been craftily cut to look like ripped, yet had a kind of wild beauty about them. This blue layer stopped a little bit under the knees, opening to the front, and like the first one, hanging lower, to half-calves, behind. The last layer was a Bordeaux-red silk, like the others, and trailing on the floor, with the same ripped hem. In an elegant white hand, the woman held a large, richly bedecked fan: with drawings of heroic scenes and a bundle of mixed savage feathers and large, beautiful orange dead leafs dangling down the fan where she held it; the other hand, she held drawn before her bosom, as if resting, yet not touching; only brushing. The tons of thin black threads that tied the skirts and materials to each other hung here and there, and the eccentric air of this woman was complete.

Quickly, with a sweeping grace, she walked down the stairs, waving her fan to the coachman for him to put the effect-cases on the floor and go. He hastily did what he was mutely bid and climbed back in his coach, looking nervously back behind.

Ember, meanwhile, nervous and restless, waited for her host to come down. She was afraid of this woman, for already she couldn't understand her. And if Ember had always hated thinks of hidden beauties like books, it was because she couldn't understand them.

The tall woman stopped before her new charge, and smiled, shivering slightly, for her throat could be seen and was free to the cold. She then stretched her elegant white hand:

'Lady Opal Angel,' she introduced herself, 'Lady Ember, I daresay?'

Ember nodded, and took the hand, which shook hers in a warm, energetic welcome.

'Welcome,' said Lady Opal, 'to Tal-Narra, your new home.'

'I am grateful,' muttered Ember awkwardly.

Lady Opal, took her arm, and in a firm yet gentle grasp, she led her up the thirteen marble stairs, and took her in.

The main corridor of Tal-Narra was a very wide hall, with a tall, arched ceiling, at dark, and glittering with silky spider webs. Doors, behind old velvet curtains or unveiled, tall and narrow, of dark, glossy wood, rose all along the two walls, separated from each other by little tables with old baskets of withered flowers, or velvet-cushioned, high-backed chairs, which themselves were standing under imposing portraits of Lords and Ladies, or peoples, or creatures unknown, portraits strange because unflattering, painted with morose colours, with subject looking glum, or evilly satisfied, or sad, or hateful, or wrathful, of sorrowful. The floor was of hard, chillingly cold flagstones, and no rushes nor carpets came to warm feet that would wander upon it: instead, it was laid with dead leaves, and withering roses, and even here and there roots from the outside trees had pierced the stone, growing tiny, sickly, greyish little saplings, and also mushrooms.

As they walked in the hall, and while Ember looked around her with a horrified curiosity, Lady Opal clapped her hands together, and immediately, out of the shadows, as if from nowhere, a slim, stealthy silhouette rushed past Ember, who nearly screamed with the fright, and went to quickly sweep up the two cases on the threshold, and slam to doors. When she heard the bolt shut with a scarily loud clicketing sound, Ember shivered, feeling trapped in this gothic, decaying place.

'Gold, the cases to Lady Ember's rooms, and warm a bath and clothes for her while I'll show her through Tal.'

The Gold vanished away in a staircase hidden by a dark golden tapestry representing an old woman holding a flower to the sun. The sun rays had lost their shine, and looked mourn and colourless, but the normally kindly face of the crone had taken an evil, bloodcurdling appearance, and moths had made holes in her eyes and in the flower, taking away all comfort.

Lady Opal, however, was already taking Ember in the first room, which had, unlike the others, two doors. The doors opened by themselves as the two women approached them, revealing the first real room. It was a very vast room, an immense room, and the colourful appearance of the walls were in fact due to the thousand upon thousand of books that lay in hundred upon hundred of rows, all around the room, and creeping up to lost themselves in the tall ceiling's shadow. The only places were there was no bookcase was the tall, large window giving upon a tiny garden of dead rose-trees, and the fireplace, which was large as well, and deep, with a terrible, roaring fire in it, and piles of wood logs lying near. On the mantel-piece, a large clock was echoing all around the vast room its eternal, frighteningly solemn ticking. Two large sandglasses were at each side of the clock, and they were fantastic, for the glass was thin crystal, and the sand, was not sand, inside, but tiny gold nuggets, that glittering like rich fire-seeds in the firelight. The rest of the mantel-piece was occupied by little figures of porcelain: black witches with streaming raven hair cursing over white cradles, executioners about to fall their shiny axes in the necks of heroic young men, knights with heads impaled of their lances, maidens riding dragons, hanged men, little faeries in flowers of violets and roses drinking from bowls of blood…A whole collection of beautifully detailed, sweetly morbid little characters.

The rest of the room was comfortably furnished with sofas and armchairs, all different: some narrow and of red velvet, some large and deep, and to die for, covered in luxurious creamy furs, one sofa that had the shape of a half-arch, a long couch laid with cushions of silk, and an army of leather armchairs: wide and soft, cracked and crisp, cushion covered, lacking an arm or a back…Next to those were little tables with bowls of fruits, a harp of gold, a basket of knitting kit, a large cushion with a black cat dozing in it, and the spider webs, all around, on the books, in the corners of the window, in the folds of the damask curtains, hanging form the ceiling…On the floor, finally, half a hundred furs, of every colour and seize, lay, covering every single inch of the flagstones, and brushing against the flat of shoes.

'This,' said Opal cheerfully, 'is the living-room. It is here that I spend most of my time.'

She backed away, taking Ember, who was absolutely entranced, to the next room. This one was a narrow room, rather small compared to the loving room: a tall, narrow window at the far side let the greyish light enter in, but the tones of colours, excessive in this room, turned it in green; a dreary green. For it seemed that all, in this room, was green: green curtains, green carpet, green armchairs, green ivy creeping on the green-tapestried walls, and hanging from the ceiling, copper cages dangled, incrusted with emeralds, jades and onyxes, and filled with rackety hordes of green birds, which flapped their green wings against the cage, and yelled in the green atmosphere.

'The Green Room,' said Lady Opal in a solemn voice, 'used to be the Lord Green's favourite room. He was the one, also, who made the garden of the East Wing.'

She led Ember out of the glaucous room, and went on, all along the corridor, showing her in room after room: the 'Ancient Library', a circular room that was in fact a little turret, and climbed for a few yards up, with two sliding, richly polished ladders, and no seat or window at all, only rows and rows of books; then the 'Blue Ballroom,' a vast room with a shiny marble dancing floor and a wall that was entirely a window, and screen with blue muslin, so that the light coming from it was a dreamy blue; the Dining Room, a vast, imposing room that glossed eerily from all the burnished rose wood, and a horde of other rooms, some comfortable, some dark and dreary, some too-colourful, some too vast, some too narrow…

And finally, after having seen the rooms to the left side and the rooms to the right side of the main hall, Ember was taken up a large stone-stepped staircase, which led to yet another huge hall, which stretched to the left and right, leading to the East and West wings. And again, the procession of rooms began: incredibly luxurious bed-chambers, cell-chambers, bathrooms, little studies and libraries, closets, nursery rooms, all as strange, beautiful and decaying as the rest of the house; with ripped curtains, spider-webbed ceilings, dark massif beds, cracked bath-tubes, cages of gold or silver filled with savage birds, crystal, gargoyle-shaped bottles, libraries with dark, dusty books, broken mirrors, wardrobes filled with the most magnificently gothic garments, mantel-pieces covered with horrifying, lovely little figures, chairs with missing feet, desks crumpling under piles of stacked parchments and leathered volumes, great clicking clocks, jewel boxes, embroidered cushions, little flights of bats running away by opened or broken windows, portraits of the most beautiful yet terrifying peoples, myriads of moths of all colours fluttering in the air, bouquets of withered flowers, trees growing form behind cracks of the stone, moss creeping on the floor…

It was absolutely, utterly magnificent; never had Ember seen such a dwelling place: it was a ruin, yet still filled with it past grace and richness, filled with mute secrets, forgotten things of the past; the walls seemed to whisper, the prowling cats here and there seemed to dare with their goldengreen eyes, carvings of gargoyles and magical creatures looked enigmatically out of their strangely alive eyes. It was a new, secret world, and it was to be her home.

When they had finished exploring the second floor, Lady Opal stopped.

'I daresay you to not need to see further. The donjon is locked heavily, and nobody was able to go in for centuries. Now, I presume you must be tired. I will show you your rooms, were you will be able to bath, and then dress and come down for dinner. Gold will show you the way, if you do not remember.'

She took a candle form the twisted hand of a little stone faery on the wall, for the light outside was lowering, and the inside of the manor was growing darker and dimmer by the minute, and led her to the other side of the West wing, taking her to he East Wing. There she walked all down the hall, to the very last door, and opening it, she said:

'After you my dear.'

Ember took a deep breath, and hesitantly walked in.

The room was vast, with dark walls of stone, which were covered with dark blue and red tapestries, representing the heroic scenes of the Moth Battle, and the life of its heroin, Mindelle MoonMoth. The floor was covered in a deep, warm red carpet, with many puzzling, complicated patterns. The two tall, large windows in the left wall were framed with several layers ripped dark old gold velvet curtains, and the net-curtains were flowing shreds of multi-coloured muslins. The room was furnished with a canopy bed, hung with the same curtains as the windows, but thicker, and covered with a trailing patchwork kilt of mixed gold, red, blue and green, and a heap of dazzling white cushions at the head side. A little rose-wooden bed-side table next to it held a green vase full of mixed dark green weeds and fawn-coloured feathers, and three little boxes could be seen in the compartments below; dazzling jewelled boxes. A very large wardrobe was wide opened in one corner, revealing surprising amounts of dresses; the piece of furniture was next to a wooden, carved chest, which was opened too, and filed with fancy corsets, girdles, sashes, sleeve-corsets, petticoats, stockings, chemises, gloves etc, etc. then, the last wall, the one facing the door, was covered in bookcases, which stretched from either side of the dark, richly wooden mantel piece, to the end corners, filled with books of all sizes and colours. The mantel piece held a tall clock, which was carved in the wooden figure of a maiden balanced on one slender foot, and holding up in both hands the perfect ivy-circled clock screen. Other figures of dancers, all in dark wood, some with flowing skirts or nothing at all, stood all over the wooden line, decorating in their elegant and bizarre way. Two comfortable armchairs covered in furs faced the roaring fire, with a little table between each, on which a tall vase of delicate porcelain contained a pile of pale pink and pastel blue sweets.

The room was warm, comfortable, welcoming. Ember felt good in it, as if plunging in a warm bath. The smell was one of sweet flowers, to remote to be too strong, agreeable to live with, and even if spider webs domed over the room, and that a flight of red and blue moths kept fluttering near the windows and bed, it was a beautiful room.

'Well, how do you find your new room?' asked Lady Opal.

'It looks lovely,' said Ember reluctantly.

'I hope you will find yourself comfortable. Gold has prepared a bath for you in the bath-chamber, so you'd better be quick before the water cools. Then she will help you dress and lead you downstairs, to the Dining Room. See you hopefully later.'

Lady Opal withdrew to the door, and added:

'And welcome again, dear Ember. If you knew how much I am happy to have you here.'

Ember smiled a small smile, and the door closed.

The dress suited her well. It suited her, in fact, like never a dress had suite her before, no matter which most talented tailor in fashion she had employed. It was a long dress of ink-like velvet, tied from the top to the bottom of the bodice by long satin ribbons, which hung long after to last knot. Long sleeves with the same ripped end as the ends of Lady Opal's skirts reached her white knuckles, tied around the top of the arm, from shoulder to elbow, by same satin ribbons with hanging ends. Under the skirt she wore tight stockings, of white and black stripes, and tied at the top of the thigh by yet other hanging satin ribbons. Then fine leather boots, and a series of other ornaments, which were at the same time grand and discreet: a string of sapphires, rubies and diamonds, in ragged splinters, hung around her brow, in and out of the hair, which had been gloriously smoothed until silky, and raised behind the head only to fall the more cascading down the back, mixed with tiny star gems. Tiny falls of jewels made twinkling and clicketing earrings, while a last ribbon, of dark blue silk, coiled around the knuckles, the thumb, the wrist, and up the arm, with minuscule little star and moon and bat gems. It was glorious, fit for a queen of night. And when she saw herself in the mirror, Ember just couldn't believe it: excitement and tiredness had given a gleaming shine to her grey eyes, which had darkened to a nearly black cloud of thunder. Little puffs of pale pink had appeared under the arch of her eyes, and the lips had slightly filled and coloured. The skin had become less greyish, whiter, and perfumed by the bath. Gold, it seemed, had worked a miracle.

She was a small woman, and like Opal, didn't seem to have any age. She spoke in an old and cracked voice; her hair was a rich, full brown, glossing over her small shoulders, and yet thin wrinkles, like Opal's, showed around the eyes, which were dark glitters of gold, and the mouth, with was small, and wore a slight, frail smile. She was dressed in sweeping dark clothes, which seemed to have no colour, hanging between green and black, or blue and black, or red and black…A little string of pearl disappeared in the high bodice of the dress, and a medallion hung over it.

'What does it represent?' Ember asked shyly as Gold tied the end of the ribbon-bracelet around her arm.

'It is the symbol of my family,' Gold said in her cracked voice, 'We other Emethinds were once a great family. Even now, I should own the Castle of Canna, but a cousin stole it from me, saying that heirloom didn't work with women…Well, I have learnt to deal with the regret and forget it.'

She finished tying the ribbon, and added:

'How beautiful your hands are! Even more beautiful than Lady Opals'.'

Quickly, for she did not think shyness suited her, Ember asked:

'How is life here, at Black Arrow?'

'Tal-Narra. You should call it Tal-Narra. Here, everybody calls it Tal.'

'Everybody?'

Ember turned in surprise, but Gold went on quickly:

'Life here is strange. It seems that time doesn't really exist…And also, the mansion is filled fit to burst with secrets…Recent secrets, ancient, haunting secrets…You cannot open a door without facing one, or bothering some sleeping drama…It is sometimes unnerving, you know…'

And she vanished.

Ember turned around a few times in flabbergasted circles, looking around. Gold had actually _vanished_.

'Don't look so gobsmacked,' said a young voice behind her.

It was a boy's voice, drawling, full of hidden mockery.

'And hurry yourself down with me. I'll take you to Opal. (Also, what really stupid questions.)'

A small, slender form emerged from the darkness and beheld a cat. Long and black, it had nothing in common at all with a human, except for the clever, sly goldengreen eyes, and a tiny silver collar hung with a tiny, glittery silver key. The cat ignored her air of total astonishment, and led her away from the room, and all across the manor to the dining room, giving many chilling details as he went.

'That manor was not build for a good reason, and not with good money either,' he said as they passed through a most incredibly beautiful gallery of enigmatic portraits, 'The man was called Lord Shadow. It is this fellow, here, the one dressed all in jet-black.'

The cat thrust a lovely little chin upwards to a huge portrait hanging exactly at Ember's size, so that she felt like a facing the man in the face. The man was beautiful. His face was shaped like the sharp blade of a dagger, and was as white as the finest ivory. His hair hung pitch-black upon his tall and broad forehead, and his eyes were deep and endless pits of darkness. He had a strange air about himself: an air of savage sorrow, an air of wild grief. He looked so intense, so true; Ember stepped back and hastily followed the cat, which already was at the end of the gallery.

'Poor guy,' the feline went on in a banal voice, 'He married a woman, a fair maiden, who's beauty was so great she couldn't keep on living with it. He had killed all his family, including his parents, brothers, and sisters, to get the fortune to build this mansion for her, and the last day, when the peasants had put the last stone and carved the last figure up the donjon, her own beauty hurt her so much she just went up, and threw herself down. So he became a monster, a kind of blood-thirsty ghost: every night, he would marry a girl, or woman, doesn't matter, and kill her, by stabbing and pushing from the tower. The donjon is doomed many peoples say. Anyway, the peoples went on living, going generation after generation from a secret child an escaped of the wives had had.'

The cat turned a corner, and they crossed an empty hall that was all, form the ceiling to the floor, spider-web-covered mirrors, and went on:

'The fifth daughter of the escaped wife's daughter built a hall, called Mirror Hall. She would sleep and eat and live here, and grew as beautiful as the dead Lord-Shadow's first wife. She was as beautiful as her, and she had thought that living with this beauty always in front, behind, under or over her in the mirror Hall would perhaps diminish the beauty. Alas, every day the beauty became keener, and every day she became madder, and hurt more. One day she took a hammer from the floor, a hammer she had kept for long years; she was not married yet, that day, and was just twenty three. She broke every single one of the mirrors, and then impaled herself with a piece of it. The Hall was locked up after this sanguinary event, and one of those stupid heirs tried to rebuild one, but it is not as magnificent as the old one.'

And he went on, as they reached yet another corridor, with was hung of red velvet tapestries form top to bottom.

'Dame Scarlette commended for kilometres of white velvet. Her husband had deceived her with a kitchen maid. She stabbed both of them in the middle of a tender act I shall not describe, and then she just pumped their body of all blood into a great basin, in which she laid the whole content of white velvet. Then she dried them wet, and hung them here. A few generations later, this lace was named Hall of the Lovers: many passionate scenes have happened in those crimson folds of velvet's lovers' blood.'

On and on he went until they reached the Dining room's door. Ember was staggering, sick with all those stories of blood and love, and the cat finally turned towards her.

'Don't look so choked, my love. One day it will be your turn to imprint a terrible story somewhere in Tal.'

He turned away, and walked idly down the corridor, sinking in the darkness. His voice, one last time, reached her:

'And remember I don't exist.'

Ember stumbled in the room, and shook herself, looking around.

Lady Opal was sitting at one side of the table, an elbow on the glossy wooden table, her chin resting in a hand, and the other hand slowly fanning her pale face. It was bizarre, utterly out of place, for the house was creaking and shivering its whole single stones with the stone-splitting cold.

'I am not hot, my dear,' Lady Opal said smilingly, 'I merely need to move my arm, so it won't rust.'

Ember only wanted to do one thing, and that was to turn around, and run, run away as fats as she could from this house of doom, of strangeness, of darkness, of ludicrousness. She went slowly to the table and sat down.

'I can see Gold has done a good job of you, my sweeting, yet this stupid ghost shouldn't have tell you all this.'

She sighed, and then raised a hand in the air, with a soft.

'You can serve. And don't linger. And don't forget the bats.'

The bats, like a massif, horrifying cloud of black, swooped down, and filled the entire room, silent in voice, but flapping their shiny black wings like mad. It didn't look as if they had any particular destination, or even that they were coming from somewhere, but after a few minutes, they were all gone, and Ember had no idea where.

'Oh, I am awfully sorry. I forgot about the bats,' Opal said apologetically.

She added:

'Eat, darling, you need force, and a little bit more flesh upon those fine bones of yours.'

And sure enough, lying on the table, dishes upon dishes of succulent food had appeared, from nowhere as it seemed.

'I don't understand,' said Ember.

Opal sighed, looking sorry:

'You don't need to. You'll soon be used. Eat'

**Requiem Soooo…what do you think about this dear Lady Opal? I, personally, love her. And Ember? I bet you noticed a little resemblance between our heroin and the Ugly Duckling. Well, this story is a little bit of the retold fairy tale: the Ugly Duckling, but with human characters, and with the Ugly Duckling coming back to its family after she'll become a swan. Well, I hope you didn't get anguished by all the descriptions. I had just the manor so vividly in my mind I just couldn't help tell all there was to tell about it. So, review, and tell me what you think about all this.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Prelude Second chapter, and a splendid one. More descriptions to come, but also more things happen. In this chapter you'll also get a glimpse of this dear Opal's weirdness. Talking of her, _do_ tell me what you think about her and Ember, and about our dear cat. Nobody ever tells me what they think about my characters. If you don't want to review it, e-mail me, sister/brother…e-mail me… But for now, read! READ!**

Chapter the Second

The Black Piano and the Red Rose

The next day, as she rose from the bed, Ember had made her decision; she would explore, and if she couldn't ignore the secrets pushing against her door and her face, she would discover them.

She looked around, wondering if it would be polite to dress with one of those beautiful gown that she had worn the evening before, and, still sitting in the bed with her legs safely in the boiling, nearly unbearable comfortable warmness of the blankets, she looked around, screwing her eyes in the darkness of the closed curtains, to try to spot her own dress, or suit-cases.

'I threw them all in a roaring fire,' Gold said, as she opened the curtains, 'And stop looking so startled. Your face is such a clear mirror of your mind and thoughts it is as easy to read it as a book.'

She turned around:

'But don't worry; you'll soon learn to close it.'

She went to the cupboard scooped up a pile of clothes in her arms, then collected a few accessories form the big chest, and came to the bed.

'Get up and dress, you have a long day before you.'

She swooped down, and tore Ember savagely out of bed. Ember stumbled to the ground, and blindly dressed: a heavy dress of ruby-and-azure brocade trailing on the floor over a light under-gown of ivory silk; a tight corset, stockings, and light slippers. A circlet of fine silver around her forehead, hung with a tiny glimmering moon of chiselled jet-stone. The overdress was very heavy indeed, very warming, stiff and elegant; the sleeves were long and loose, and ripped shreds hung form their hems; a huge hood was drawn down the back, and the ends seemed eaten by the tiny teeth of time.

After Ember was dressed Gold gave her an apple, and went away from the room, but Ember didn't have time to start that in a flutter of shiny blueblack wings, a crow came to rest upon her shoulder, and spoke in her ear, very close so that she could feel the sharp end of its beak against her skin.

'Close your face, silly girl, stop looking so much like what you are thinking and feeling! Hide, for your sake! And hurry your ghastly hide to the study! The mistress is going to loose her patient in a few moments!'

And flying before her, as black as a scrap of the deepest night, the crow led her all through the mansion like the cat had done the day before, but crossing utterly different passages, room neither Opal nor the cat had shown her, or even pass by. The crow, also, was very different for the cat: he kept on insulting her and threatening her, he flapped his wings in her face, he screeched his grim cries, and screeched even more when he saw her flinch…

'I hate you!' she exclaimed when he fled away in a corridor, leaving her alone before a closed oaken door.

'You would be safer if you really did!' she heard him reply.

Angry, she pushed the door abruptly, and precipitated herself in, tripping over the hem of her dress.

It was a very vast room, with a tall window at the other side, letting in plenty of pure daylight through snow-white net-curtains. The carpet was very clean, and smelled of light, free flowery scent, the walls were covered in silky wall-paper, white flowered with pale pink and rosy red, and the few tapestries were embroidered with gold flowers upon white velvet. The room was furnished with two or three bookcases, a great, majestic desk, a few high-backed chairs, a little half-circle of comfortable armchairs around a warm fire, a harpsichord, a few violins, and an open chest full of blank canvases and painting material. The tints were pale, pink and white and light gold, the armchairs deep with many lovely fat cushions, the desk was covered with piles of neatly stacked papers, and a pot of beautiful lively flowers lay upon its smooth, dark surface. The chairs were cushioned with dark pinkish-red velvet, the musical instruments were polished and richly shining, and no spider-webs came to disturb the comfortable brightness of the clean room.

Sitting in one of the chairs, Lady Opal was quietly reading from a thin book, her head bent down on the large pages, her hair piled up high and majestic upon it. Even though the slithering strings of chiselled jets and garnets were still present, she looked utterly different, not herself anymore: she had changed her clothes. A dark, stiff black dress, with a huge black silk collar, was sternly tightened around her slender waist; her sleeves were stiff, too, ended by large hems of the same black lace silk as the collar. An under-dress of delicate red satin showed under the severely black, and small, shiny little slippers appeared under the trailing of the skirt. Opal looked magnificent, stern, imposing.

She raised a stern, unsmiling face to Ember, a face so different form the one that had welcomed her so mysteriously and warmly the day before.

'You are late. I believe Gold did tell you to hurry up,' she said dryly.

'My lady, I did hurry up,' muttered Ember.

Which was true. Never before had Ember hurried up to do something she was asked.

'Never mind what you did,' snapped Opal, 'you are late, and that is that.'

She went on: 'Sit down.'

Ember quickly went to sit in a chair, facing the lady's.

'I believe you are not very good in reading?'

Ember blushed, and looked up furiously. Opal stared back steadily, icily, and went on: 'Well, as I am now in charge of your education, you will have to learn to read, and to know how to read, what to read, and to know all about books, and the most fashionable ones; it is, I must say, a most important point of our society's nobility.'

And then started the first real lesson Ember ever received in her life. From eight o'clock till midday, Lady Opal made her read, a book that, strangely, was pleasant. It was the tale of an epic quest to find three stars to lie around the bed of a queen, and the writing was such that it was a great pleasure to the tongue. However, Ember wasn't used to read; her phrases were cut, unsteady, her reading was bumping, trailing, it was an awful experience, such an humiliation when from time to time Opal read for her sentences whole, in such a perfect tone. Then, just as the little dark clock on the marble mantelpiece struck the high noon, Opal led Ember to the desk, where she sat her down, and gave her a pile of snow-white parchment. She gave her a blue feather-quill, a bottle of ink, and the book, and told her to write down all she had read this day: a full twenty page of small, neat narrow writing. She added that she would have her lunch when she would be finished.

Ember set to work, silently, trying to close her face over the feeling of misery and pain she felt. She bent down as low as she could over the paper, and started to write '_As the sun, full glory up in the cerulean heavens, rose like a tossed coin of pure golden-sweet_…'

She wrote slowly, impossibly slowly, and when she finished her first page, her hand was aching unbearably, and it was already one in the after noon.

'Well, well, well,' said Opal as she came back from what Ember pictured a delicious meal, 'you do not seem to such a good writer. Well, you will finish this tomorrow, now you have harp lessons.'

And she led Ember exhausted to a great, glittering golden harp. No luncheon, of course as she had not finished writing her pages, and she found, as miserable as she was, that nothing was harder to do, including writing, than to play harp. Opal ceaselessly commented on her chocking incompetence, and when the clock finally stroke tea-time, Ember was near nervous breakdown. She threw herself on her piece of cream cake like a ravenous tiger, her eyes wide open, and then closing in ecstasy as she swallowed her first mouthful. The rest followed quickly, and she would have eaten even the tray if Opal had not dragged her away from the tea room and down the corridor.

'After tea, we have equitation for two hours. Then you are supposed to have an hour free time, but as you did not finish your writing work, you will have to use your free time to complete it.'

She led Ember at the bottom of the stairs leading to the first floor, and said:

'Go and put on some riding-garments, and come down. You have ten minutes.'

Ember quickly raced upstairs, were a black flutter of tenebrous feathers led her to her bed-chamber. The crow left her there, and quickly, it was Gold who appeared, tossing a pile of dark red clothes to her, and then abruptly baring her of the clothes she was wearing. The riding dress was very tight around Ember's slender waist, the bosom was tight too, uncomfortable, the skirt was narrow and light, and opened all the way from her right ankle to her right knee. A pair of elastic, light boots that reached to her thigh and tight knuckle-length sleeves achieved the accoutrement. Finally, Gold took away the hair-jewellery of the morning from Ember's head, and violently brushed the pitch-black hair until it shone smooth and rich like pure silk of raven-azure down her back. She twisted and pulled, and tied the whole at the back of her head, mixing great amounts of pins, ribbons of black velvet and flowers of wild red pansies, until it held firm and rigid. It gave a beautiful effect, but Ember had not time to admire the result, already, Gold was dragging her away from the room, and making her run all the way downstairs to the main door were Opal waited for her.

It was yet a new Opal. Her hair was no more in a great majestic heap upon her head, and it wasn't tightly mixed with ribbons and flowers like Ember's; half of it had been rolled high behind her head, and held there, falling in an idly elegant way over a pale, gleaming circlet of vermeil. The rest was falling in an elegant cascade of supple curls, and it was totally impossible to say whether they were artificial or not, so beautiful and light they looked, all in shiny white, mixed with a long tongue of ivy that curled amid them. The dress was very like Ember's, but all in a dark green, while emeralds fell in a glittery river upon the white throat that the low neck bared. This looked like the only difference.

'Oh, how lovely you look, my darling!' she cried as she saw Ember come, 'hurry up, I can't wait for you to see my horses. And anyway we must make hast as I think the rain will soon start falling from heavens.'

The doors, as if by themselves, opened wide, and the two women went down, Opal more running than walking, Ember following, trying not to look too puzzled. Lady Opal took her around the Manor, and to a long, narrow building of grey-white stones. Inside, as it revealed, were the stables, were at least twenty horses slept. Neat piles of oat were piled in the corner of each of their compartments, and a long iron basin full of peaceful, crystalline water lay at the end of the building. The horses were obliviously well taken care of.

'There now,' said Opal, 'chose a horse to ride. My favourite one is this one.'

A tall horse, one with such a dazzling white coat that it didn't look as if it belonged to this world. Its mane was long and silky, and its eyes were clever and dark, and gleaming in the half-light.

'My lady, I haven't got a good experience in horses. If you would choose for me…' murmured Ember.

'Well, why, of course I will!' and she went toward a gate nearly at the end of the room, she opened it, and came back holding a horse by the reins. It was a tall horse powerful and slim, and like Opal's, it was so beautiful it didn't look like an earthling. It was as black as night, such a glossy black it seemed impossible to do better, polished nearly to perfection. Its mane was longer and silkier than the white one, if possible.

'Here are my two beauties: Light, and Night.'

She stretched the bridles out to Ember, and herself led her horse away from the stables.

The two hours of riding were exhausting, and intoxicating. The violent blusters of grey wind tore away gasps from Ember's chest, and lashed at her clothes. The air was fresh, invigorating, slightly chilling, and soon, even though she was uncomfortable and icy, on the subtle, quick-as-the-wind horse, Ember was thoroughly enjoying herself. Opal had changed, again: she had her hair flying in wild snowy curls behind her head, the wind had struck two clouds of dark pink upon her cheeks, and her lips were wide open in a smile of enchantment and unleashed pleasure. Her eyes were gleaming dark emerald in her flushed face, and she seemed more beautiful—and young—than Ember had seen her yet. When the night finally started to fall, turning the already dark grey atmosphere into and even darker grey one, Opal brought her horse to a breathless halt, and said:

'Well, night is falling. We have to go back in.'

She sounded like a prisoner that would have enjoyed a few moments of freedom before going back in his cell. The wind was still sweeping in her hair, and her cheeks were still flushed rosy, and her eyes were still gleaming dark green, yet it seemed that she had slightly extinguished herself. It was strange to see that change.

The tiny hour between the ride and the supper was a pleasant one: sitting around the fire-place in the comfortable, book-filled living room, they had both changed into evening clothes: Opal was in a long vast robe of dark silks, held with a thin embroidered sash around her round, white shoulders, and falling into loose waves down her body; Ember in a similar one, but warmly covering her arms and completely loose save form a high sash under her breasts; the dress was pale blue, the sash azure, and a chiselled river of sapphires and diamonds fell upon her forehead and temples. Both had small, comfortable satin slippers, and both felt comfortably warm after the slashing chill of the outside wind. Opal was sitting on the floor, on the rushes before the fire, and gently playing a merry, peaceful tone on her golden harp, while Ember sat in one of the comfortable armchairs, spread in cushions of satin, and writing earnestly, and better every minute, the end of her text.

After dinner, which was a strange experience, Opal announced she had two hours more of lessons, before a free another hour of free time, before bedtime. The lessons after dinner were, as incongruous as it seemed, dancing lessons. Opal took Ember to the Blue Ballroom.

With the pale gleaming grey light of day replaced by the silvery, unveiled moonlight, the atmosphere in the room had changed. It was still very blue, and even more enchanting than when she had first seen it the day before. The windows were open, and yet the heavy muslin curtains did not let any chill come in: they were rippling, like the shivery surface of troubled water, under the pushing breeze of night, and a kind of harmonious whistle came in by a series of little holes of every size over the windows, filling the room with a kind of mystic, serene music.

'Take off all your clothes,' ordered Opal in a hushed voice.

She started to take off her robes of wavy silks, and Ember hesitantly followed her example. Then they were left bare but for their thin silken chemises, Opal went to a corner of the room, were a marble chest lay pale in the blue gloom, and came back with two long pieces of spectral white satin material. She gave one to Ember, and told her:

'Remove your chemise, and put this on. Then unbound your hair and turn around.'

She turned her back to Ember, and started undoing her chemise laces and Ember hastily imitated her: she took off her chemise, and pulled the white dress over her head. The dress had no talented cut, or stitches, it was merely a piece of satin coarsely cut, with only two tall shoulder straps to hang it from the shoulders, letting the rest of the cloth flowing free and rippling. When she had arranging the straps as high as she could to hide as much as possible of the young breasts, Ember took off the pins and net Gold had stuffed in her hair to hold it into a firm bun for the evening. The whole came loose, and like a glorious fall of ink, blueblack in the indigo atmosphere, down tumbled her raveny hair. She turned around.

Opal was already ready, and she seemed so strange, so ethereal in the blue air, that Ember was left slightly breathless. Her hair fell down her back in a stream of silvery-blue, and with the flowing white around her slender, tall body; she looked like a ghost. Little did Ember know that it was her, more than Opal, who looked like a ghost, thin, all in white, with her beautiful spidery hands raised to her high bosom, and her hair glorious black down her back.

Opal said:

'Oh…I had never guessed…' she looked up, and met Ember's inquisitive stare, and said quickly: 'Dance is not what women mostly think of: a vulgar way you manipulate, to attract young men. Dance is a gift, which you have, or you haven't, which means that if after a few minutes I see that you are not made for this divine art, I shall not force it upon you. If, however, you are made for it, I will make you work very hard, for, let me explain to you…Dance in a kind of precious stone, you find yourself having from the beginning. When you discover it, you must put all yourself, your very soul, to carve it, to chisel and shape it in your own true personality.'

She paused, thought for a moment, and went on:

'If you are sorrowful, the dance you will be made vaporous, shimmery, ethereal, fragile. If you are violent and short-tempered, your dance shall be quick, cracked, ragged. If you are dreamy, your dance shall be slow, the paces hesitant, light, loose. If you are serene, it will be even slower, the paces wider, calmer…You see, you shall develop your own way, according to your character. Look at my dance and try and find what is my character.'

Ember thought: you have no character, like an Opal, you look white and pure, and simple, yet you change your colour at every different angle.

And Opal danced.

Her dance was, like Ember had thought, changing: her paces started wide, and opposing, then became quicker, then she started dancing in widening circles, then she broke in the circle, and into small, abrupt paces, than she turned around, started a very slow, very airy pace. All the while, her long hair, mixing in a cloud of pure white, flowed with her dress, and her eyes were closed, her face intent, soft, or concentrated, her arms over her head, or stretched out. And also, at every change of her paces, the whistling music of the window holes changed, one moment wailing and soft, one moment piercing and short, one moment slow and low, one moment cracking then beginning again into a merry tune. This room, more than every room, Ember discovered, was magical, but even more magical was Opal, who suddenly came to an abrupt end before Ember, bowed, and said, in a calm voice:

'I know you know what I really am. And now, I expect you to know that I know that you know. Dance, young girl.'

'I do not know how to dance,' said Ember.

'It doesn't matter. Dance, and we shall see if you are made for it. Dance, and know that it will do good to you.'

Ember stepped hesitantly upon the white marble floor, and started paces, slow and hesitant. She felt disturbed to see Opal observing her so closely, and suddenly had the idea to close her eyes. Tightly, she did, and slowly let go of herself, and of her mind. The whistling form the window lightly tossed her body, and she begun: she thought, and her body followed her thoughts.

Her first thought was of her family. She felt sad when she thought of them, for she would have loved for them to love her how she was, and the whistling from the walls became sad, and low, complicated and as her paces grew wider, and slower. She grudged them this lack of feeling for her and her paces changed, so abruptly the whole of her hair slashed across her face: quicker, violent, contradictory. The whistling grew louder, and accusing. And then she thought of the black crow, and of his insult and advices. No fear, this time, only anger towards him, for the words she remembered he had said: '_If only you could hate me, you would be safer_.' She knew, of course, that he had spoken the truth, for even know, it was anger, and chagrin she felt, no hate still. Her paces grew even more quicker, tight, narrow, complicated, the whistling low and menacing. And then, the picture of the drawling cat, and his stories. Her dance broke into a fleeing pace, as the invisible pattern she had drawn against the crow vanished, replaced by these ragged paces. And then, the picture of Opal, but an Opal she had not seen yet. A serene, yet regretful, grieving Opal, sitting at a window sill, all dressed in black, with her hair long and white, and her beautiful face young and old at the same time, so filled with sadness that Ember stopped dead, in the middle of the slow, frail, slender dance she had been tracing on the floor under a soft, low, plaintive, feeling-full music of harmonious whistles.

'Well, that is very educative, for sure,' said Opal, a pleased Opal.

'You are for sure very complicated, but, by the Pentagram and the five Sorceresses of Olden Days! What a dance!'

She looked thoughtful for a moment, as Ember crumpled on the floor, trying to catch her hissing breath, and then told her to stand up and dance again.

'You are good; you have talent, but you are not near good enough to be called a proper dancer. Dance.'

For two hour, she made her dance, but not like the first time: she told her things, stories, things that manipulated every single movement the young girl did, and the dance was so exhausting, so restless, that when the end of the two hours finally arrived, she was absolutely powerless.

Opal took her, still dressed in the white dancing-gown, to her bed-chamber, and leaving her at the door, she bid her good night, and told her that she had to be in bed as early as she could, for the morrow would be yet another exhausting day.

When she came in her room, the fire was warm, and Gold immediately took her to the marbled bathroom, were she bathed her and gently massaged her weary limbs with perfumed salves and oils. Then she dressed her in a light, black silk nightgown, and withdrew away to her own rooms at the far end of the manor, in the West Wing.

As she sat on her big, soft bed, Ember thought: I am alone. For the first time, alone and free.

She could perhaps get away from her room, and do a little bit of exploration of her own. She got away from the room, bare-feet, in her black nightgown, with hair black her loose and still humid down her back, and walked down the corridor, her feet chilled by the icy stone. She climbed to the next floor, and stared exploring. The rooms were even more weird and mystic in the night, yet she was exited, the curiosity of the young animated her young body, and made her eyes shine.

She found several interesting rooms, but still went on, when she found the room she knew would be her very own secret room through her new life in this bizarre, gothic place: a small room, with one of the wall only a window, screened with black velvet, and black rugs lying on the floor. Against the right wall, with a side against the window, was a glossy, huge piano, gleaming richly in the night, so beautiful, so perfect it made Ember's eyes water. A small stool covered with a black velvet cushion was before it, and a single, red as blood rose, perfect and fresh, lay upon its shiny lid. The opposite wall was covered by an immense tapestries, all of black velvet, and embroidered with the picture of a tall, blacker-than-black silhouette, stretching her—for the long flowing hair denounced a woman—arms towards a spectral silhouette, which stretched his arms to, as if longing to catch her but unable to. The picture had a sad, unbearably sad, air, and it made Ember's heart ache for those two who craved so much to be close, but would stay like this, longing and desperately stretching their arms, till the end of times.

Ember went to the piano, and sat down quietly, then, hesitantly, she started bringing notes to life, pushing keys at random, and listening intently to the pure, melancholy notes. She soon forgot the present world, as she slowly, hesitantly investigated the keys, and after one hour, she was accustomed to nearly all of them, save from the black ones. She played a short tune, a sad, small one, and stopped, and looked at her fingers. They were very white and slim, and spidery in the dark, and looked magical, as she ran them over the piano's keys. When she had finished her small tune, she stopped, and quickly went back to her bed-chamber, taking the scarlet rose with her, to be sure she had not dreamed.

**Requiem Aha, this chapter is truly bi-ooooo-tiful. I love it. And it is greatly amusing to have all those different Opals. I just loved it. But, humhum, it doesn't matter what I think or love. So review; you can see I care about what you think. You can. Review…pleeeease…pleee—REVIEW, WILL YOU!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Prelude Haha, the best part in the story: the metamorphose of the awkward duckling into a majestic swan…Yeah! I love this! REVIEW RIVEW REVIEW—I'm getting slightly overexcited, I'm afraid…Well, never mind. Please Review. **

Chapter the Third

A Ball

So Ember's new life started. Writing, reading, harp playing, embroidering, dancing, riding, singing, literature, foreign, natural and historical culture, lessons after lessons, difficult, demanding, her day-life she found unbearable: often she did not eat any luncheon, and the better she got at every subject, the harder Opal made her work. Opal was so unpredictable you could not say if she was going to smile or scowl even if she told you before: she would make Ember work to exhaustion, and sometimes she would take her riding, or play harp to her, or read to her, or chat, amiably, gaily, like sisters. Sometimes she was stern and scornful, sometimes merry and talkative. Her lessons would be unbearably hard, and then she would offer a box of soft chocolates…As for the rest, it was as unpredictable as the mistress of the house: the cat and the crow would sometime be talkative, or snarling, sometimes insulting, or gently encouraging; Gold was most of the time reliable, but she vanished often in the middle of a conversation, and sometimes her words were enigmatic. The castle sometimes was friendly, and clear, sometimes a real maze of corridors and closed doors. The only thing that Ember could lean upon, the only thing she knew was always here, and never changed, was her piano, the dark, glossy, melancholy piano in a little room somewhere in the third floor. Every night, when she would go upstairs, she would find the door unlocked, with the key inside, so that she could lock herself, and also, the thing that troubled her the most, was the rose she found every evening waiting for her, fresh and crimson upon the black lid. She would take it in her bed every night after her piano playing, and hug it to her heart, until after a month, her left breast was so scratched and torn by the thorns that it was constantly hurting and bleeding. One busy year passed, in the confined, gothic secrets of Tal-Narra, and Ember grew slowly used to the different Opals, the cat and the crow, Gold's vanishings, her difficult day-work, and her playing of piano increased to such a high level of perfection she couldn't believe herself. Ember slowly changed, too. Her hair became thicker, richer, of a glossy raven-black, the black with the blue highlights, her skin changed of quality, no more chalk and sickly, but rich, creamy milky-white of colour, and fine. Her face grew thinner; the thin black eyebrows swept lightly upwards, the cheekbones elegantly pronounced, the lips curly, and the eyes grew as dark as the darkest cloud of storm: a rosy flush appeared upon her cheeks and lips, her breast grew slightly, high and firm, her waist became smaller, and her hips reached a grace of slimness that was incomparable. In fact, after one year of hard life at Tal-Narra, after one year of unleashed dancing, hard labour, long rides in the wild, cold corridors and hours of piano playing, writing and reading, Ember grew as beautiful as never Opal had seen someone beautiful: her beauty seemed of the night, black and white, her body was aerial, slim, slender, and she grew a kind of secret, changing grace, sometimes stealthy and closed sometimes gay and laughing. Already reading had become one of her great loves, and her dancing had gone beyond perfection; her writing was small, and neat and narrow and curly, her culture was improved of many facts Opal had never taught her, and she loved riding as much as her host did. Often the two of them would seat in the living room and discuss matters Ember would never had been able to discuss when she first arrived at the mansion, and they would also play long hours of chess, at which Ember lacked a certain talent, but still loved.

However, it was her piano playing that was her best improvement: she played so well, airs and tunes so sad and secret, so full of feelings, it was totally incredible to hear herself. It sometimes happened that she gazed with puzzlement at those long, spidery white hands that ran over the keys, black and white, and produce such a sound of pure beauty. She knew, of course, what mostly inspired the melancholy, desperate music: the tapestry behind her never ceased tormenting her; those two persons, black and white, still reaching helplessly towards each other, made her cry long hours in her bed, and also made her fingers run like a breeze upon the black and white keys, trying to help them by the music made for them. She longed to help them, grieved to the deepest parts of her heart for their doomed crave. And the rose, each evening, was here for her, as if trying to comfort her. She loved the rose so much, this too had become something making her heart ache, for now the wounds upon her breast didn't close anymore, they bled constantly, even if by little amounts.

However, life went on, and Ember grew rather happy, in the secret and mysteries of the mansion, alone, retired and recluse, but for her four companion: the eccentric Lady Opal, the enigmatic Gold and those two strange, yet deeply darling crow and cat, both black as night, and somewhat bright as light.

One evening came what Ember positively thought as definitely a bad new. They were sitting before the window—the one giving on the garden of roses that now bloomed in their spring—on a fine evening, no wind at all outside, and the windows open to let in the warm night air. Opal, dressed all in white, a loosed-fitting dress that rippled slightly under the night breeze, and Ember, in a satin dress of dark scarlet, with a river of rubies and garnets cascading down her white throat the laced bodice had bared to the beginning of the high young breasts. Opal was embroidering a chemise, sitting in a leather armchair, with her feet resting on a cushion at her feet, while Ember, sitting next to her in a twin armchair, was reading out loud an epic tale, her back against one of the armrests, which was softened by a pile of large cushions, and her legs thrown upon the other one, stroking the black cat as he purred with an air of great satisfaction, his small shin resting upon her breast.

'By the way,' Opal said as Ember threw the book away to be able to caress the black cat better, 'did I tell you I organised a ball?'

'Ugh?' Ember bolted straight in her armchair, the cat jumping away with a revengeful whip of its paw upon her throat, leaving three long red marks. Ember didn't even notice, she was staring, her eyes and mouth open wide in horror, at Opal.

'Well, I know you weren't going to be pleased, but what is done is done.'

Opal raised her head from her chemise, and setting her work aside on a small petal-covered table near her chair, she took Ember's hands in both her own.

'Don't worry; I am sure you are going to enjoy it.'

The idea of a ball, the idea to have someone violating the peaceful sanctuary of immortal secrets, the idea of having someone normal, someone dirtily human, was disgusting, cloying, sickening, and Ember suddenly found herself locking herself in silence, always in her bedroom reading, or playing piano, which soothed her. Her lessons had stopped for the summer, as a kind of holiday, and she had welcomed the rest, yet now, she never more wished Opal to oppress her with work. Now, she was conscious every minute of the slowly filling of the house, as every morning new guests, she didn't even try to meet, and whom Opal didn't force her to, which Ember was infinitely graceful for, arrived. The ball was taking place in three days now, and even though she had begged and pleaded as much as she could, Opal had been inflexible upon the fact that Ember had to be present.

The afternoon before the ball, as Ember was dozing in a chair in her bedroom with her book open in her lap, and her eyes slowly starting to fall, when Opal came in, smiling widely. She was holding in her arms a pile of clothes, which she threw on the bed, with the merry order for Ember to wash, perfume, comb, and dress herself.

'Here are two dresses I am sure will suit you. Chose your favourite, and come down when you are ready.'

Opal went away, closing the door behind her, and Ember listened as her footsteps died down the corridor. Then she stood up, with a sigh, and told herself that it was no need to resist, and that if she had to be present, well, let's make it memorable.

She went in the comfortable bathroom, and in a bath already prepared. Gold was not here, evidently busy elsewhere, and Ember stripped herself of her dress, happy to be alone for once. She jumped in the bath, and started to energetically brush her body with a brushing-sponge, spreading the soap all over it as she went. Then she took a little flacon of thick hair-soap, and poured some in her hair, and chafing vigorously the violet liquid in her hair. The strong, delicate perfume of lavender filled the room, and Ember ducked in the soapy water, closing her eyes tight and catching her breath. Still under the water, she rinsed her hair and her body, and went back to the surface, gasping but free of bubbles.

After she had dried herself and apply perfume in her neck, hair, and wrists, she went away from the bathroom, still naked, and examined the two suits of clothes. Both were so beautiful she wondered if she would ever be able to choose one.

The first one was of green velvet, but no stiff, old velvet: it was fluid, water-like velvet, off deep emerald green so perfect that it seemed like a piece of green water sewn into a dress. The gown was cut tight from under the bosom to the half-thigh, and rest flowing free and bright green. The top was very loose, tied over the breasts by long laces of satin ribbons, all of pale jade laces. The sleeves were of green muslin, in many folds of translucent green. The dress was elegant, well cut, and evidently would fit Ember to perfection. The other was altogether different.

It had a magnificent corset, in red velvet of strange patterns, and tying in even darker red ribbons over an under-tunic of red silk. The sleeves were vaporous and black, and held in puffs by long, streaming, red ribbons, like those form the corset. The dress cascaded in long, ripped waves of at least three layers of black silk, ending into a trailing tongue of glossy black. The whole was queenly, fantastical.

Now, which one?

The ball was not taking place in the Blue Ballroom, a fact for which Ember was deeply grateful. The mansion, at the coming of all those people for the normal, wan world: the main corridor had been dusted, long pots of china filled with colourful flowers hid the bottom of the walls were the thin, miserable sapling from the two outside trees and the mushrooms grew; the dead leaves and flowers that used the carpet the floor had been swept away; lights in colourful, sweet little lanterns dangled form the ceiling, flowing a fresh, delicate perfume in the air, and a little series of holes over the door had been uncovered from their iron caps, forming the harmonious melody of a soft, slow music.

Ember hated it. She hated to see the velvety silver of the dust gone; she hated to see the scraps of golden-nut of the dead leaves swept away so ruthlessly, she hated to see the squatting mushrooms and feeble sapling hidden by silly flowers of pastel blues and pinks, she hated the changing, the departure of this antique place's magnificent decay. The ballroom in which the ball was taking place was just in front of the living room, at the opposite wall of the corridor: instead of two doors, it had two long, water-like curtains of rippling violet velvet, which had been washed to get rid of the dust and dirt of time, taking a clean, welcoming, floral colour. The room was vast, with a floor that had been cleaned white, and flowers hanging in garlands all along the top of the walls. Two tall windows at the far side of the room opened upon a veranda leading to a romantic garden of flowers, and both the windows had been opened, their curtains, like the doors', drawn up in elegant, large waves by golden plaited strings. The dancing floor was free of any filth, or ripped golden-brown leaves; instead, tine petals of multicoloured flowers lay enchanting and lovely on it, and butterflies of tender pinks and yellows and blues fluttered from garland to garland over the guests' heads. A long buffet had been laid at one side of the room, covered by a trailing white table-cloth and delicious meals and sweets and drinks. A tall, beautiful harp enweaved with flowers was lying next to a long bench covered in pastel cushions, and a little stool of pale shiny wood sat next to it, ready for a musician.

Opal was by far the most changed—and the most beautiful. Her hair had been raised vaporous and pure snowy white over her head, and a tight net of silver strings mixed with the most beautiful, colourful flowers ever seen gave the whole lot a truly fantastic air. Her dress was of a pale violet, but of a shimmering cloth, so that every time she moved, the folds changed from violet to silver, from silver to indigo, form indigo to pink. The effect was that she looked as if she was constantly moving, but gave a posed, magical air to this fact, it was fabulous, unreal. She walked with grace, and laughed and talked with amiability and good-humour; and her guests were evidently fighting over her conversation, as well as all the men were fighting over her dancing turns.

Ember watched her before she came in the room, slightly retired behind the purple curtains: Opal looked so graceful, so kind, amiable, agreeable, interesting, walking graciously from guest to guest, with a long lilac fan, incrusted with amethysts, in one of her delicate hands. Ember looked down at her own hands; those were beautiful. Not lovely, or nice; they were truly, utterly, positively beautiful. White as milk, delicate, with long, pale greenblue veins running down the back of them, and long, nimble fingers, spidery and white, nearly translucent, and long nails as white as the skin. Neither gold nor silver came to disturb the natural sweep of white beauty, only a twisty coil of emerald ivy.

Ember went in, slithering as quietly as possible and caught Opal in a rather empty area. Taking her arm, she whispered:

'What on earth am I going to do here? Look at these people, they aren't in our rank. They are…in the mud.'

Opal smiled; a smile so mischievous Ember knew she was up to something. The time she tried to move away, already Opal turned her around to a group of talking gentlemen. Most of them were dashing young heroes. All of them were irresistibly attractive. They all bowed, and kissed her hand, gently, gallantly, and as they made a small conversation in which Ember took part only in monosyllables, she couldn't help noticing the way all of them discreetly compared her with Opal.

For if Opal was grace, colours, light and vaporous; Ember was a contrast. For Ember, in her inability to chose between those two examples of tailor perfection, had resolved her problem by cutting the knot short; she took another dress.

Of old black velvet, antique velvet, the dress had a simple cut: long and loose, trailing in ripped edges on the floor, with narrow sleeves that fell to the knuckles and a neck that fell in an obtuse V to the beginning of the white breasts, Ember had added a few touches only to make it more elegant: a large stain ribbon of shiny black was tightening the bust from the bosom to the waist in large crosses, the end falling at each sides in long, slithery black coils; a pair of plain black satin slippers that clacked quietly on the marbled floor and some few ribbons from the shoulder to the elbow of the sleeve completed to dressing extravagantly simply. The hair had been combed so long it had crackled with electricity, and now it was so silky, so perfect down the straight black, anybody could have mistaken it for a veil of satin. Rich azure highlights enlightened the darkness of it, and a network of blue and fawn feathers, a large, golden dead leaf, some coils of entwined jet-stones and sapphires and a pendant of old, timeless silver runes mixed and embraced in the whole of the blueblack mane, achieving an effect of savage elegance. It was beautiful, intense, casual. And the skin was so milky, so whitely creamy, so perfect, she seemed like a nymph of pure moonlight and night. Beautiful and tenebrous.

The young gentlemen were subtle in their gallantry, but empty of any attractiveness of interest. The looked upon Opal as wonderful and fantastical, and Ember as strange and dark. Their notice usually stopped there. Now, the room was filled with many people, and Opal took upon herself to try and introduce Ember to all of them. To the young girl, all of it was boring, senseless, colourless; until a little group of men finally mildly attracted her attention. They were all older than thirty five, and younger than fifty five. Men of science or of letter, their obvious lack of interest in the females present quickly procured them Ember's appreciation, and as soon as she could, she went to lean against a wall, in the shadows of a lantern-less corner, to listen to there conversation. Luckily, in fact, ridiculously luckily, they had not seen here, and they were talking as freely as could be, if not in a low voice.

'Well then, Lord Drake, what think you of our host?' the man nearer to where Ember was standing said.

He was obviously the eldest of the group, for his hair was metallic grey, but Ember could not see his face. The man to whom he was talking was, on the contrary, nearly fully facing her. He seemed in the areas of forty, but his hair was still very dark: not a blueblack kind of hair, like Ember's own, but a deep, highlight-less inky hair, that fell in straight line upon a tall, beautiful smooth marmoreal forehead. His eyes were extremely narrow, and he wore a single monocle circled with elegant silver. His face was one of slight disdain and casualty, but a disagreeable face, even if fantastically beautiful. He was dressed with obvious elegance with straight black breeches and boots, a tight black jacket opened at the top on a puffed white silken shirt, and a sweeping cloak of dark black lined with red velvet, and tied at one of his shoulder by a heavy antique silver brooch incrusted with a single garnet. Ember, to her chagrin, could not see what it was representing, however, her attention was quickly reported to his words, pronounced in a slow, thoughtful, yet slightly grudging tone.

'Lady Opal stands at the peak of her beauty,' he declared.

'Indeed,' said a small man next to him. This man had the jumpy beauty of a clever, exited man; in his early thirty-fives, small and slight, he looked around him with acute curiosity, 'Never before had I seen Lady Opal so fair.'

'And where is this little protégée of hers now?' the last member of the little group asked.

He was a tall man, but with a secret, rather closed, and clever face. No feeling reflected from his indigo eyes, and his grey hair came in no way to disturb the smooth blankness of his face. In any case, Ember grudged him to have mentioned her.

'Certainly disappeared. Poor girl, she certainly doesn't look as if enjoying this ball.'

'Who can blame her,' murmured Lord Drake nearly too low for Ember to hear.

The topic was starting to annoy her. She did not want to hear what those men had to say about her, yet she couldn't move now. Perhaps she would risk…

'Utterly beautiful. Indeed, even more beautiful than Lady Opal. By Heavens, have you seen this frame?'

'Dark and savage, nothing more,' Lord Drake scowled.

'Oh come on, Drake, don't be so cruel. She has some good points,' said the first man.

'I think,' started the tall secret one, turning to the last who had spoken, 'that you are right, Erelnirion. She has obliviously got hidden qualities.'

'She is perfect:' exclaimed the tiny exited one, 'those raven hair, these silvery-stormcloud eyes, this rosy mouth, this milky skin—'

Angrily, furious against herself from having stayed to listen, Ember swept away in a murmur of her shadowy skirt, and strode unceremoniously to the end of the room, and out, in the terrace. Withdrawing as far as she could behind a bulky bush of roses, she went to lean against the marble barrister, turning her flushed face to he night wind. The ball had not even properly started yet and she longed to be back in her room, or rather, in the piano room, alone in a dark place, with the solace of the enigmatic red rose against her bleeding breast.

'Indeed, they _were_ mightily annoying,' said a low voice next to her.

Lord Drake, all dark and quiet had slipped like a shadow behind her, and was now leaning against the barrister, looked straight before him, and casually smoking a long, slim cigarette.

'I don't see what you mean,' Ember said nervously, glancing briefly and fearfully at the noble, marmoreal, aristocratic profile.

'Come, Lady, you can do better than that. 'I don't know what you mean' is far too trivial for such a mind as yours,' he retorted serenely, with a touch of slight contempt in his voice; and still not looking at her.

'What know you of my mind…' said Ember in a low voice, and imitating him in his lack of notice toward his interlocutor.

'A great deal indeed,' he said enigmatically.

A long coil of pearly smoke twisted into languorous wisps in the air, and slowly vanished, as Ember turned towards him, her eyes sharp and piercing, icy silver in her pale face.

'You may be clever, you may be renowned for your spirit among your fellows, but you shall not persuade me that you discovered my mind in a few hours,' she hissed.

'Indeed, I shall not. Your mind is far too well-hidden in the velvet folds of your hostility for me to discover it in such casual a time as a ball,' he said in a quiet tone, and the left corner of his lips slightly rising in a smug, yet disturbingly wry half-grin.

He was silent for a few seconds, and then went on:

'Your mind is like a secret animal of the night; wild and beautiful in its sadness. In the night, it finds solace in any way it can find, as long as it is a way no one knows; a way that is protected in secrecy. Your mind, like an animal, also can't be approached by any human: recoiling in its silky purity, and shrinking in the fright of a wound. So, I tamed it.'

'You speak of things you don't know. And my mind will not be tamed by any person.'

'No. that is what I have just said. I tamed it with something else.'

'You are a liar. You are only trying to get me out of my defences.'

'I must admit it is my main goal. To discover the rose hidden in its scarlet fold, instead of ceaselessly encountering those adorably sharp thorns you put in the way.'

'Well,' said Ember, with a touch of self-satisfaction she barely hid to him, 'You can still hope, you won't be able in a life time to reach your aim, whatever trickery you use.'

'Ember, all tenebrous and fearful, poor, frightened creature in a world too big for you, I have a question which if I asked, you would pale so much I would be able to see these greenblue veins I already can catch a glimpse of under those eyes you turn into helpless arrows of silver. Come, delicate Ember, tell me: is your mind not singing when it restlessly, smoothly leads your white fingers over the black and white keys that succeeded in charming you out of your defences?'

Ember caught her breath in a hiss as sharp as the sharpest dagger-blade, and turned as pale as he had foretold she would.

'Do not answer me. Your pallor is an answer precise enough for me,' he went on, still not looking at her, and still smoking and blowing his pearly smoke in the night air, 'Yet, I will ask you another question: you who protect yourself so desperately from the pains of this world, how can you possibly allow a red rose to engrave such wounds upon your already bleeding heart?'

Ember staggered away, and finally, he turned to her and looked at her, his narrow eyes piercing her through the single monocle.

'When I see you like this, with the shield you so bravely hold fallen in the dust, I understand why all those protection: you are as fragile as the most fragile flower, you are frail and so forever on the point of becoming ash that you cannot afford a single tear to fall! Poor, poor Ember of the Dying Fire, poor, poor "_Braise Mourante_"!'

He then took hold of her arm, firmly, and in an iron grip, and led her back in the ballroom, where the lights were nearly all extinguished, and a soft orchestra had started, setting the guests on the dancing-floor for the first dance of the Ball. Opal was slowly being led around in the strong arms of Erelnirion, and a slight smile had added a flushed expression such as Ember had never seen on her face before. She looked, for the first time, actually _happy_. Intent on observing Opal's expression, and trying to ignore the heavy, unbearable weight of Lord Drake's words upon her mind, she first did not notice that he had taken her among the dancers. His arm he slid around her slight waist, and pressed her securely to his breast, before setting her on a slow pace. Unlike the long hours of unleashed dancing in the Blue Ballroom, the paces he made her do were slow and languorous, lingering, casual, rather senseless; the dance was effortless, too, for he made all that was necessary to go on, and she slowly lost control of her own body, sinking back in his words.

How could he possibly have known that she played and loved piano? How could he have known about the wounds she herself scratched away from the rose's thorns and upon her breast? Of course he could have seen the blood under between the folds of the cloth, and he could have been told by one of the many silent presences in the manor of her playing the piano; still, in spite of the reasonable ideas she forced in her troubled head, she could not help feeling profoundly disturb and unsettled. She felt she was in danger, when he knew so much of her secrets, and then, another idea, cold and horrifying to her poor mind, what if Opal knew? What if what she had reassured herself to be hers and her own, this secret she kept with such delight, have been known by her host? Was every thing she rested on as fragile as he had said she was? Was everything really so untruthful, so unworthy of faith?

'Allow me,' said the Lord's voice, interrupting her joyless meditations, 'to tell you… a story.'

Ember raised her now dark as the darkest storm-cloud eyes to his face, her mouth shut and small.

'There was once a young lady, of the rather unwelcoming name of Raven. She was as darkly beautiful as you really are, and as well protected from this society that you too fear so much. She grew up in this very mansion, retired form the world, under the vigilant keep of two woman, two sisters, Ladies and landladies of this manor. She grew up beautiful and pale, and secret and sad. One day however, her guardians gave a ball, in this very room, and there she met a young lord, in the ages of twenties, two years older than she. He was handsome and clever, and from the very first look she took at him, and him at her, they fell in love. I indeed do now the subject of love is trivial and without interest, yet, listen.

'At the beginning of his stay in the manor with the other guests, she started by shunning and fleeing him, yet after a few days, she started to look for him, and spy on him, in secret. She did not wish for her love to be known, or to marry, which would have been perfectly possible, given that the young lord was in her rank, and that she was in age. Yet, like you, she feared people would use her own feelings against her, and hid them. For a few months he looked for her, and her for him, and during all his stay in the house where she lived, for half a year, they did not exchange one word. Finally, in sadness and chagrin, he had to go, and she saw him out by one of the hidden windows, tears in her eyes. She had saved herself, so she believed, from the evil love could bring her, and in true she destroyed herself. For three more months, she decayed in her chambers, crying from dawn to dusk, from evening to morning, ceaseless in her regret, and fright and anguish; her body, like her heart, slowly dying. He on his side, was doing the same thing, but not knowing whether she loved him or not. It went on for one whole year of unbearable misery when both came to a decision: he told himself he would go and see her, and take her cost what it might, and set out the very hour, and she, finally lowering her shield, told herself she had been slain, and decided to climb to he highest parapet of the highest tower and stab herself. The time she was up, he was racing through the corridors to her chamber, and the time she made the terrible, final peace with herself, he had caught a glimpse of her, with the dagger, at the top of the tallest tower. She saw him climb desperately to her—too late; she stabbed herself, and then, as he still reached for her, she stretched out her arms down to him, and both reached and reached, to finally die in each other's arms, for he too, was wounded, not physically, yet mortally to his heart; both could not reach their goal. In their last, final movement, the only feeling was one of chagrin, for they knew both they would die before having reached each other: they died in pique, in terrible, horrifyingly sorrowful exasperation.'

The white figure reaching for the black figure, both desperate, both helpless and hopeless, oh! how could Lord Drake know? Ember lowered her eyes to the puffy shirt on his chest, not daring to look him in the eyes.

'And all this why? Because she was too much of a coward to accept her own feelings. Because she was such a funk to love. See?'

'I don't see why you are telling me that,' Ember whispered.

He stopped abruptly in the peaceful paces of the dance, and savagely hugged her in his arms, so hard and cruelly that the breath was torn form her breast. Her chin was now lying on his shoulder, close to his ivory neck, and her burning cheek was brushing against his jet black hair.

'You know perfectly well why I am telling you this. I do not wish to see you suffer. And more than that, I do not wish you to destroy someone else, like you are very likely to do in your foolish lack of faith in the world.'

He pressed a hand to the small of her back, and the other one he brought sweeping up her spine, in the delicate nape of her neck, bringing up her face to meet his glittery eyes.

'If you could make me have faith, I probably wouldn't scare you,' she said quietly, still not meeting his eyes.

The hand that held her grasped viciously at her skin, as he twisted it to bring up her face, to force her to challenge his glance. When his effort stayed fruitless, he hissed in an exasperated, angry way, and like a ravenous falcon, he brought down his face, like the executioner's axe, upon hers. In a biting, violent way, he kissed her savagely on the lips, drawing blood in his frustration.

When he released her, it was to toss her away form him, looking aghast, horrified by what he had just done. Slowly, unbelievingly, he raised his hand to his mouth, and touched the blood of her own he still could taste at the tip of his tongue.

Ember, with such a look of anguish in her eyes as never he had seen, never even imagined a girl's eyes could express, staggered away, and drunkenly, dazedly, she went out of the ballroom, groping her way back to her own room, away from this unreal man who could so wrathfully tear a kiss form her one, private, delicate lips, after having thrown all her secrets broken at her feet, even though he'd known her only for less than an hour. When she reached her door, however, she suddenly changed her mind, and went up, by corridors and narrow staircases, quickly fleeing away from the too real, yet unreal world down stairs, and to the solace of her piano. When she entered to room, her eyes, as if my irresistible magnets, were drawn to the tapestry, picturing such a scene of despair and longing it made tears swell in her eyes. Dashing them angrily away, she went to seat abruptly down on her stool, and opened the lid, revealing the gleaming keys. Just then, she smiled, and her hands, like two butterfly, fled across the desert of black and white, drawing a quick, sad, desperate music in which all her chagrin, her anguish, all her feelings she poured, like strange ingredients in a potion. It was only then that she felt at peace, finally all the worry, all the puzzlement, all the feelings were soothed under the peaceful waves of her calm. She felt serene, safe. She felt good.

Requiem Dear readers, I hope you loved this chapter, I personally adore it. It is soooo good, and I love it soooo much. Pleeeease tell me what you think about it. Which means, in other words: REVIEW! Or e-mail, if you prefer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Prelude You are in luck, readers! I've only got a week to go before school! This is great news; I just miss school soooooo much! I am so bored in the dreary family-life…Ahh, I wonder what would happen if I hadn't my novels to keep me in good moral health. Well…anyway: read, enjoy (notice that I don't say try to enjoy, or I hope you enjoy: it is ENJOY! You have no choice what-so-ever.) But most of all: I beg you to review, or to e-mail me. No. I don't beg you, I merely ORDER you: REVIEW or E-MAIL me if you don't want to end your days with your head bent over your back. (Talking of which: have you seen Kung Fu Hustle? I saw it, and really: wi-cked…) Never mind, REVIEW or E-MAIL (which is the main point of this poetical Prelude.) **

Chapter the Fourth

Prison of Black Silks

The next day, when she woke up, Ember found out she had not even bothered, or afforded, to take of her clothes. She was merely sprawled upon the bed, her face resting on the velvet patchwork counterpane, her feet on the pillows. Someone—doubtlessly Gold—had drawn a heavy blanket to keep her warm. And warm she was, comfortable, still not thinking about the events of the previous evening. She sat up, breathing out a heavy sigh of pleasure, and then another contented sigh, for now rest was lying before her. For the few months Opal's company would stay at Tal-Narra, the latter would not give her lessons, and she would not have to go down. The prospect of such peace was agreeable, comforting. Lying back down, Ember cuddled back into her sleeping position, and went to sleep again. She woke a few hours later, as light streamed through the multi-coloured strips of muslin, and lighting the room with lights of all tints and shades. Outside, some of the hoarsely squawking birds from the forest were harshly singing their joyful songs of summer, and sounds of laughter and chatting rose from the garden, which had awaken her in the first place. The guest, so Ember had understood, were to stay at Tal for several months, and even if the prospect was more of a dark one to her, it had enlightened the air in the whole manor, as if someone had swept out with a huge broom every single secret, old curse, dust and velvet of old, leaving the place neat and agreeable The Manor, it seemed, had the magical property to match newcomer's personality; for Ember it had been dark and secret, for those it was free and pleasant. The Manor was fantastic, and treacherous.

Ember, after having dressed herself, went quietly down, and stealthily dashed passed a buffet from which she took up a handful of creamy little cakes. She then passed by the library, scooped a few volumes, and went back up in her bedroom. Eating her cakes slowly, and reading, she spent the morning away from everyone, and would have probably spent the end of the day if Gold had not, after the luncheon, come in and told her a message from Opal.

'They are going riding, and Lady Opal would wish that you join them.'

'That's mean,' said Ember, 'Why does she want me to go and ride with those ignorant persons?'

'She only is going with Erudite Erelnirion, who is an Erudite of great renown, Lady Astralee who is a great cartographer of the celestial ways, and Lord Drake, who is famously know for his spirit and attractiveness of mind,' Gold recited dully.

'That doesn't prove anything,' Ember declared, but Gold cut her:

'Stop bemoaning yourself, silly girl, and dress; Opal isn't known for her great patience.'

'She is,' Ember grumbled, and Gold slapped her lightly on the cheek. After having grudgingly dress in a splendid riding dress of stiff, deep black velvet, with a scarf of azure-night gauze tied around her head with ends floating in the veil of raven hair, and long, slender boots of old lustreless black leather, Ember hastily went down. The dress was cut tight around the waist, and fell in a large sea of flexible velvet. The sleeves, extravagantly large, were in fact so large they kept in the crook of her elbow, revealing only a ribbon of creamy white flesh, the rest of the arm being covered by majestic gloves of fawn doeskin embroidered with blue satin. The neck of the dress lowered in waves down to the top of her breast, revealing the white throat, and a black ribbon hung with a little crowd of silver stars, moons, runes and carvings of animals that tinkled in a crystalline way as she ran down the stairs and corridors, holding her overflowing skirt in her gloved hands, and busily looking down.

Downstairs, just outside the door, she found Opal, Lord Drake, Erudite Erelnirion and Lady Astralee outside, talking animatedly about the powers of Zodiac. Opal was dressed with great elegance in a pale grey dress of satin that shimmered like pure silver in the sweet sunlight: a great sash of dark stormy grey velvet embroidered with pearly flowers was holding up a bosom that the low neckline revealed in all its beauty, and the skirt was narrow and straight, but opening all the way up to half thigh, revealing the boots of slight leather that climbed up to the top of her legs. The top of her hair was pulled in a snowy braid tied with a silver brooch, and was falling back among the free flow of hair, the all being lightly tied together by a long net of spidery silver. Opal's face was flushed; her cheeks rosy in the conversation, her lips deep dark pink, her eyes glittering pure emerald, her skin fresh and neat.

Lady Astralee was dressed in an emerald dress that was tight from her bosom to her hips, with a long large skirt falling from the bodice. The dress was of dark green silk, and it highlighted Astralee's loveliness: the peach of her skin, the hazel of her rich satin hair, and the sweet beauty of her clever face. And even through her determination to hate all of them, Ember couldn't help—liking, the woman.

Erelnirion was dressed all in metallic grey, watching his silver hair, and matching Opal's accoutrement. He looked very majestic and solemn, yet at the top of his good-humour. He and Opal looked at each other in a way never Ember had seen anyone looking at someone else. Lord Drake, slightly withdrawn from the conversation, was in deep dark blue, and Ember cursed Gold for putting this blue scarf in her hair. Damn the man, he really annoyed her. And his beauty was the worst of it. Such a calm, pale, unbearably attractive face, such narrow, pit-like eyes, such a perfect ivory skin, such silky jet-black hair, such a high marble forehead, such a stature, such a slimness and beauty of body…

Ember, disgusted with herself, turned her eyes away form him, catching the quick gesture of Erelnirion as his hand shot up, caressed for a second Opal's bare arm, and shot down under her eyes. Ember, struck deep, hurt to the heart, unbelieving, lifted accusing eyes to Opal's face, with the intense desire of stabbing the beautiful bosom to death.

'Let's go, then,' said Opal, as she noticed Ember for the first time, meeting her eyes when the knife-full look had died.

Gold came from the corner then, holding five horses by the bridle, including Night and Light. Ember, still grudgingly, climbed up on the saddle, and in a tearing movement, pulled her arms up, pulling on the bridle, turning the horse around the face the empty, sunned valleys across. Those valleys, those fields Ember had known in their ashen, velvety grey beauty, now wanly sunny and flower-filled. As they started to gallop, Ember holding slightly backwards, the conversation oriented in politics, then gossip, and the further they went in the ride and in the conversation, the more bored Ember got. This discussion seemed senseless to her. And the more on they went, the heavier, more bored, sleepier she got, until she finally fell half asleep on Night's neck. She was awakened too soon to be completely asleep, by the voice of Lady Astralee.

'Shall we split? I would greatly wish to show Lord Drake to the Tall of Dark-Living.'

'And I and Erelnirion are heading for the Woods of Tenebry Entrance. Which would leave Ember alone.'

The four of them turned to her. Ember started up straight, and said hopefully, in a tone she wanted purposeful and bright: 'Oh, but I specially wanted to go to the Ruins of Rebellion. I shall go, then, and shall we meet back at Tal in half an hour?'

'In two hours,' Opal said quietly, glancing at Erelnirion and smiling.

They split, and Ember quickly headed for the Ruins, triumphing of her lucky escape. When she finally reached the Ruins, which stood straight and white as a city of immense ragged fossils, she dismounted, and went to tie her steed to a tall, broken pillar. Then she went and sat on a half broken bench, on which a green moss had grown. A little flight of white butterflies passed by, and in their way they leaved a trail of silence and serenity, that slowly crept up in Ember, and released all her body's defences. In a few minutes, the weariness of the ride and of the tiring, annoying conversation caught up with her, and she fell asleep. Like a queen of night and winter in the middle of a murdering world of sun and spring, in her black dress, she slumbered down, her pale face all quiet and small and grave in her sleep, the tiny white butterflies flying dreamily around, the sun falling upon the white ruins, and the flowers growing all around. A terrible picture of beauty, a beautiful picture of terrible contrast, none of the world greatest artist would ever have been able to describe the beauty of the scene. And none ever tried.

She woke up a little hour later, as the sun passed behind a cloud, and the freshness crept like a horrifying chill all over her body. She sat up, yawned, and then thought it was time to go back in. She went to Night, who was peacefully eating the grass, and untied him, climbed on his back, and set off. Darkness, as the clouds grew thicker and greyer, screening the sun even more, crept over the land, until everything was of a metallic dusk colour. The clouds lowered themselves, and before Ember had time to finish her crude curse against treacherous weather, the heaven's ripped open, and down came pouring ropes of water in a thick fall of rain.

Ember, in a few minutes, was soaked wet to her bones, and feeling chilled and hateful, she clicked her horse quicker. When a dark, quick shape tore to a halt next to her, coming apparently from nowhere, all her anger was concentrated in her fright, and then, in the subject of her fright.

'What the deuce do _you_ want?' she bellowed in the rain.

'I was sent to take you back home,' he said peacefully, meeting her eyes cold-bloodedly.

'I don't need you! Bog off!' she shouted at him.

When he didn't, she angrily tore the bridles to the right, and threw her steed on in a diabolical speed. Knowing he was unable to quite catch her on, he didn't follow her, and she soon lost sight of him. Until, like a thunder-strike, he bolted right in front of her, cutting short her race. Night, wildly, reared back on its powerful hind leg, and Ember, like a mere ragged doll, was tossed to the ground, were she sprawled in the mud. The abrupt fall ripped her whole dress all the way from the very bottom of the skirt to the top of the bodice, revealing the black silken chemise and the gossamer stockings, and the dazzling ribbon of opaline flesh in between. Ember, dazed, sat up, and shook her head, trying not to feel giddy. The muddy floor had cushioned her fall, but still she felt totally numb. Lord Drake, serenely dismounting, came to kneel next to her, but so violently he jumped back, she screamed:

'Don't you dare touch me! Don't you ever dare!'

He stopped in mid-motion, and looked down at her gravely. Shakily, hatefully, she stood up, staggering a little, and then, cursing her birth blessings to hell for the flight of wild Night, she set on her way back to Tal, limping slightly, and snarling with a corner of her upper lip raise over her shiny teeth. When he caught her up, under the arms, hauling her up on his steed and laughing quietly, she felt immensely good and joyful. Sprawling back in his arms, and rolling her soaked head of his shoulder, she raised a hand to his cheek and pressed her white palm to his skin, which was smooth and perfectly polished like a fine ivory carving. The muscle of his jaw was wolf-like, and savagely pure an angle. She said:

'I wish I could find the courage to push you away from this horse. Then, if I were lucky as well as courageous, you would break your neck. And leave me alone.'

'And what retains you to push me?' he whispered in the crook of her streaming white neck.

She did not answer, merely pressed her cheek to his, wishing she could feel his warm breath in her neck till the end of her life. When they arrived at the Mansion, nobody was waiting. Lord Drake dismounted, and lightly carried her on the ground. She stepped away from him, holding together each side of the largely torn dress.

'You told me they sent you,' she said, accusingly.

'I told them to go and have their siesta, and that I would go and seek you. I did.'

'I cannot believe this. Everyone would have separated to sleep, apart from you,' she said, still as accusingly.

'Sleep, I doubt it,' said Drake.

He sighed, and advancing to Ember, he took her by the arm, and led her in. As they walked up the corridor, they left a long river of rain water, but they did not notice nor cared.

'You see, Opal has taught you many things, but there are some things she simply cannot teach you. Come, Lady Ember, do you not guess what Lord Erelnirion and your tutor may be doing as we talk?'

Ember, unbelieving, broke form his grasp and stepped back.

'Oh, how I hate you,' she said quietly.

He reached for her and grabbed her once more, and dragged her up the large staircase, against her struggles. When they reached the top, he oriented her to the West-Wing.

'Come, Lady Ember. Let me put the fire back in the ash. Let me show you how sweet an hour can be.'

With a sob, Ember tore herself away from him, and back away. He smiled, his thin lips stretching delicately, looking grave and yet unbearably seductive. She didn't think, she whipped around, and ran. Up to the second floor, right to the East wing, right in a room, behind a tapestry, she ran up a flight of narrow stairs, stormed past a room full of red satin, sobbing, tore through mirrors, up another flight of stairs, and finally crashed down against the locked door of the donjon. There, she just slipped to the ground and wept, like a child, like someone who has just torn her heart from her chest, like the one who lost what it cherished most. And all of this, by her own hand. She was the one who stabbed happiness each time it approached. The murderous hand of her caring self, the one who wanted her safe and empty, who wanted to save her from all that love could bring of woe and horror.

As the sobs slowly calmed down, Ember finally wiped her eyes, and looked up. The door from which she had just come was wide open, giving on the dark, narrow winding staircase, ad the room in which she was known was fully in wood, each single inch of it carved in the same patterns of roses and eagles. The floor too was of wood, dark and glossy as if it was being wiped and burnished every single morning. No window came to add light in this small bell of wooden darkness, and the smell was old and ancient and antique, rich and fresh. The door against which she was leaning was very thick, and of pure, massif carved metal. On it the pictures of a ghastly, hauntingly beautiful, empty-eyed woman was stretching out her arms in a horrifyingly longing, desperate gesture, and under her words were traced in a gothic writing:

_You who wishes to enter my realm, answer this:_

_What is better than life, worst than death,_

_And the only thing to appease man's hunger?_

_Answer my question, and hold the key,_

_To enter my doomed domain._

'Nothing!' cried Ember bitterly, 'Nothing can appease man's hunger! Nothing is better than life, nothing is worst than death! Nothing! No—'

She stopped in mid sentence, and gaped as the great metallic door swung easily upon its hinges, silently opened a dark passageway to a tall, narrow menacing staircase. Ember, without thinking, then stood up and walked into the staircase, not caring when the door slammed shut solemnly behind her, and leaving her in total gloom.

Groping blindly around to feel the smooth cold stoned walls and the uneven stairs, Ember slowly made her way up the steps, and eventually reached the top. She pushed at a thin fine wooden door, which let go easily, and presently entered a circular chamber. The room was beautiful. It was not large, and filled with only, uniquely, a large, round bed, with curtains hanging black all around it, mixed with aerial strings of fine spider-webs. Here and there, scattered upon the black sea of smooth black blankets, were black cushions, and at each all around the edges of the bed were black pillows propped against the curtained walls. The only space of the room which wasn't filled with the bed was the three climbing stone steps that led to it. No window, except from three ones in the carven, domed roof, which were narrow, and crossed with iron bars. The time Ember crossed the three steps, and sat on the bed, and that the door swung back shut and clicketed locked solemnly, Ember realised the dark beauty of the room: a luxurious cell.

'It is what suits me best,' she thought to herself, 'nobody will find me here, and even if I starve, at least I will die safely. Nobody will ever be able to find me here.'

And with a soft sigh, she snuggled her head against the pile of black pillows, closing her pale translucent lids over the dark silver of her sorrowful eyes, closing her flushed lips and settling her spidery milky hand next to her face. She wasn't feeling tired, she only wanted to rest her tired soul, to rest forever and never again be confronted to the hideous ugliness of the disgusting world in which she had been cursed to live in. She closed her eyes, willing to find herself in another world, willing with all her might not to wake up again, or to wake up somewhere else, be it in hell. It seemed to her weary mind that she couldn't take anymore of it, that her life had already been filled overflowingly with this cloying horror of this world in which she had been tossed by the winds of woe. Life had denied her everything she craved for. As a child, never did she possess the love of her parents. Or the affection of her sister. Or the admiration or even friendliness of her entourage. For ever, again and again, she had been tossed away, repulsed, she had been cursed away from this world; at such a point that she had had to be thrown away in this mansion of tenebrous gothic secrets. And Opal, here, had been her mother, everything she had lacked she had been given, in a desperate attempt to fill the aching void that would always desert her heart. It seemed as if it had been transformed in a giant, cruel snow desert, and then filled with howling, grievous wolves that would forever refuse the food it would be proposed, by fright and contemptuous refusal of any pity. Ember, morally, was dead.

**Requiem Ahh, this chapter is soooo tragic. And the last sentence is soooo dramatic and sad. I love this chapter. Very poetical, very beautiful. Well, never mind what I think. You need to review now, I'm afraid. I said, I'm afraid, not because I am afraid of what you may write, but I'm afraid that you may not write. Oh yeah, and a little question, if you have time: If you had a magic mirror to which you could ask one single question the mirror would be forced to answer, what would you ask it? Please answer in a review or in an e-mail, I just wanted to know.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Prelude Ahh, how sad and terrible does this word sound: "Farewells." I don't know why, I just love this word. It is sooo beautiful. I'm definitely gonna put it in my list of favourite words, along with the magnificent "Apocalypse," "Sapphire," "Enchantment" etc…Well, never mind. YOU review, or e-mail me. Please do it! And after all, it is an S.O.S. You probably know that any person ignoring an S.O.S. could go to jail for Non Assistance To Person In Danger. Aha, you see how evilly clever I am? Now, read and Review. DO IT!**

**Chapter the Fifth**

**Farewells**

When she woke up, it was to find the chamber plunged in utter darkness, and a ray of moon stripped with the iron bars falling light and angelical, at the centre of the bed. Ember, sitting up, dragged herself to the enlightened point, and looked up, so as to bathe her face in the blue-white moonlight. Her hands suddenly met something fresh and soft, and she looked down, moving so as not to screen the light: which when freed, fell glorious to light the slender shape of a scarlet rose. Ember, numb with a crowd of feelings she could not understand, blindly raise her face to the light again, hoping she would see a bird, something natural, being the cause of this rose that tore her heart.

'Birds are so stupid. You should have learned that.'

Ember, disoriented, lowered her head again, and looked to her right, where on a pillow, sitting straight and elegant, black with the two dots of his gleaming goldengreen eyes, the cat was sitting.

'Who then?' she asked in a low, cracked voice.

'It doesn't really matter. I am tired. Searching for you all through the Manor has not bee an easy task. Sing me a lullaby.'

'No,' Ember replied, settling back against her pillows.

'Kiss me,' said the cat.

Ember bent down, and pressed her small red lips to the cat's pink, wet nose. At once, his paw shot up, four white claws flashing in the blue darkness, sharp as knives, and slashed across Ember's tender white cheek, opening four neat shiny red lines.

'Sing,' he reiterated.

Ember sang.

No beautiful poem or gentle song, but only a low, sorrowful tune, that rose melodious, young and fresh and sad as a night deserted by fair moon. The song coiled and twisted agonizingly in the small room, until the cat broke it with its cutting, ironical voice.

'Too sad. Change the tune, love.'

Ember's voice faded, the melody dying upon her lips.

'You're so sly,' said another voice, very clear and nasal at her right.

'I'm not,' said the cat, annoyed, 'You are.'

'Tell her about this room.'

'She already knows,' replied the cat.

'Only part of it.'

'She knows.'

'Not enough.'

'I'm still here you know,' said Ember mildly.

'Shut up,' said the crow and the cat, both at the same time, both to her and to each other.

'Go away if you don't want to talk to me,' Ember said.

'Don't be like that my love.'

The cat, sugary, hopped on Ember's lap, and sweetly viciously sinking his paws into her tender bosom, he started purring.

'You should get away,' said the crow presently.

'She can't,' said the cat, at the same as Ember said: 'I can't.'

'Shut up love,' said the cat

Ember pushed him away, but succeeded to it only after he had printed many remarkable traces of his sharp claws upon her hands.

'You're so mean,' said the crow.

'Be quiet. Love, won't you go on singing,' asked the cat, settling down cutely next to her thighs.

'No. What was that you should have told me about this room that I partly know but not enough?'

'None of your business,' said both the cat and the crow simultaneously.

Ember sighed, lied down, and closed her eyes.

'Go away, both of you.'

'Just take the rose,' said the crow, and when she sat up again, both were gone.

'Come back!' she called sorrowfully, 'Oh please! I didn't mean it! Come back!'

They didn't. Picking up the rose, she tried to ignore her feeling of misery_. It was I that wanted this_. I _locked myself here_. _I refused what all wanted to give me. I am responsible_. _I mustn't suffer_.

Ember, sorrowfully, pressed the rose against her breast, the thorns incrusting their sharp points against her white palm. Lying down again, drawing the soft black blankets over her shivering body and closing her eyes, Ember tried to forget. She wished she could be away, but knew she would never succeed. She wished she had a knife.

She fell asleep.

She woke up feeling a cold breath upon her face. Opening her eyes wide in alarm, she beheld a sight that froze her right through to the very core of her soul.

A tall, thin silhouette was floating, kneeling next to her, and observing her so closely she too could see each detail of its face, which was transparent white. It was a man, with a face so painful, so sad and beautiful, she started up. He raised a hand to touch her cheek, and when it did, she felt life a cold kiss of breezy iron printing itself on her skin, she backed up, her eyes wide with horror and shock, her mouth forming a scream but her voice already faded. A tear of blue crystal suddenly swelled from the ghost's eye, and fell upon her hand. She looked down: the skin was absorbing the blue tear, and it left a little star of glowing blue in the night. She looked up, and he was gone. The only thing left of him was the blue star on the back of her white hand.

Lying down again, Ember wept, her tears falling silently on the pillow, and sobs faint but heartbreaking. Oh, who was he, for such sadness? Who was he, to be so tormented even through death? Why was everything so sorrowful? Why did everything finished sadly? The blue star tear glowing still as shiningly, she fell asleep again, cradled by her tears and sorrow.

She woke up at the sound of birds singing in an annoyingly sweet way, and by the light, free breeze of after-storm caressing her face and brushing a small tress of raven hair to her cheek, tickling and waking her up. Surprised by the way in which the breeze blew, she opened her eyes and sat up, to find, at her utter amazement and disbelief, herself lying on her bed, the soft velvet patchwork quilt caressing her legs. Ember sat up straight, and was about to swing her legs off the bed when she felt, as she removed her hands from her chest to pull them on the bed, something slid down her bosom to the crook of her thighs and hips. Looking down, and picking it up, she discovered it was a small envelope. She opened it, feeling anxious, and from it fell two things: a piece of dazzling white paper on which one word was written in a long, spidery, quick writing: '_Farewell_,' and a long, old silver chain, fine and glittering pure, with hung to it a heavy silver pendant: a moon crescent, smooth and pale, around which was curled a dragon, of darker silver, but with two tiny rubies incrusted in its finely chiselled, majestic face.

Ember, distraught without being able to tell why, hung the chain to her neck, and slipped it between the silky chemise and her skin. Then she stood up and went to the fire, which was slowly dying in the chimney. She kissed the letter, put it back in the envelope, and burnt it. She would regret it, she thought as she lost her eyes in the fire.

'Lady Ember! Up and fresh! Down to the dining room as quick as you shall!'

Gold had opened the door, flung in the words and then disappeared. Ember, without hesitation, ripped off her riding gown from the day before, pulled on a long, loose blue velvet dress, a large black ribbon around her waist, new, small brodekins, and changing the blue scarf in her hair with a simple silver and sapphire hairbrooch, went quickly downstairs, her feet quietly clicketing on the marble floor. She soon reached the dining room, which's door was open, and went in.

On the table, besides the hoards of empty plates and cups waiting for the guests, the usual fresh white breads, bowls of fruits, five or so flagons of juices and wines, the two plates of pale golden butter, the pot of steaming white milk, the ten jars of jams, the crystal plate full of chocolate, and the three recipients of sugar, coffee and cream. The pot of hot water was standing next to Ember's plate and empty cup, but before she could come sit down and fill it, Opal, whom Ember had first not notice, jumped away from her chair, and strode to her.

Ember, slightly surprised, looked up, and met Opal's beautiful eyes. And there, she saw something she had never seen: tears, glittering like the frailest pearls of dew. There were more wrinkles around her emerald eyes, and her hair, this morning loose around her face, seemed whiter, but of old age. In her beautiful hand, she clutched a piece of paper.

'Oh my child! Oh my child! Oh! how I won't bear to have you torn away! Oh Ember! Oh my beloved!'

And she hugged her to her heart, and sobbed on her shoulder. Ember, deeply shocked beyond reason, anguished, hugged her back, and took the letter, which Opal let go without resistance. Still caressing her tutor's snowy hair as she wept into her shoulder, Ember read:

'_With respect and great gratitude,_

_Darling Lady Angel,_

_For now two years you have taken care of our daughter Lady Ember, and we are infinitely grateful for your services. We must however announce that we would bid Lady Ember to come back to Earthenstar, where her family is languishing for her. May we add that her mother looks intensely forward to the meeting, and we would wish for Lady Ember to come in the shortest delays._

_In hope that our message will reach you diligently and in good times,_

_Wishes of good health and fortune,_

_Sincerely and eternally_

_Yours,_

_Lord Ewan Firestar de Earthenstar_.'

'I shall not go!' cried savagely Ember.

'Oh yes you will,' said Opal, slowly pulling away.

She deposed both her hands on the young girl's shoulders, and gazed at her for a few moments in silence. Then she sighed.

'When you came, I saw into you a kind of gem, which had been tossed around and thrown away, and so much damaged that all the brilliance and charm had tarnished. So, with all the tools I could gather, I burnished and polished, until again, all the light and brightness and glitter of the gem came back. In fact, the jewel was more brilliant than any other jewel: more precious, nearly perfect.'

She paused:

'You came to me pale, sad, grudging, colourless. I applied a flush to your lips and cheeks, and I warmed your heart as much as I could. Of you, I made a treasure. And now, I shall loose you.'

Opal sighed, and said:

'Ember, I probably shall not see you a very long time after you will be gone, but I promise this: I shall write to you. And I would wish that…' she stopped, hesitating, 'that you would put all your efforts in appearing as the jewel I cherish, even if I know you would prefer to extinct your own light to be sent back here.'

'I don't want to!' Ember wildly cried.

She stepped away, and reproachfully:

'I hate them! I hate them all! I hate all that is not Tal-Narra or you! How can you ask me to be to them what I am to you?'

She ripped the letter, and tossed it on the smooth shiny floor.

'Never!'

She walked to Opal, and took her hand earnestly in both of hers:

'You understand me! I know you do! Keep me to your side!'

Opal, quietly:

'I cannot.'

'Then you do not love me.'

Coldly, Ember released Lady Opal's hand, and strode away from the dining room;

'I am packing. I intend to use one of your coaches, if you are quite willing.'

She walked out, leaving behind her a mortified, collapsed Opal, and then straight into the tall, imposing Erelnirion.

'Lady Ember! What the—'

'Ah, be silent!' Ember flung at him.

She tore past him, and up in her room. There, she stood a few moments, immobile, at a loss of what to do. She had forgotten all she was wearing was not hers.

'All that is here is yours,' said Gold matter-of-factly.

Out of the shadows, from nowhere as usual, she energetically walked.

'Opal told me that this room and all it contains belong to you. She told me you would be devastated at the news. Do not blame her.'

She went to the great wardrobe, and took form the bottom large effect-case, in which she started folding carefully clothes, corsets, underwear, jewellery and other dressing items. When she was finished the wardrobe was still full, and so were all the chests.

'Now you come here, my darling, and I'll dress you so as to stuff it to this acursed family of yours.'

She went over to one of the chests, and took out, unfolding it little by little, the splendid red and black dress for the ball. Ember let herself being lead to the bathroom, in the bath, and only wearing her chemise, Gold washed with huge splashes of pure water the black hair. She perfumed it, combed it, and twisted it high on her head, while she started scrubbing Ember's back, arms, neck. Then she rinsed it all, and went out, throwing at Ember to finish washing, and come out in a towel, which Ember did, in silence, with a heart growing heavier each minute. She tried not to care, not to feel; she knew she would suffer, but couldn't accept it: What! all this time of protection, all this privation, only to have her heart torn by those she hated most, those who had murdered half of her life? Oh! how bitter! How wicked, how sad, how ugly…

Ember, drying herself slowly and vaporously, as if in a dream that was to come to an end when she knew it and was dazed by it, went out of the bathroom, to be immediately seized by Gold, who energetically ordered to change shift, chemise, corset and stockings, which Ember did sadly: the chemise was black, and diaphanous, with long, tight sleeves and reaching down the half-thigh. The corset was very light, and tight, and plain black, with small ribbons in the front. The stockings were so gossamer, so fine, it felt like a second, perfect skin; stripped incongruously black and white, with a delicate strip of lace on top of each, and tied around the thigh with long, dangling lace ribbons.

When she was finished, Gold dressed her with the red and black ball dress: so quickly, so nimbly she had finished in a very few minutes: Ember dead-like between her vigorous hands as she turned her around, tying ribbons, adjusting skirts and laces, smoothing silk and velvet, arranging hems, cuffs and neck. When she was finished, she went to rummage in one of the other chests, and brought back a whole armful of accessories: black lace mittens, a hairbrush, a few combs, a trail of mingled ribbons of all colours and one of the beautiful jewellery box. She threw down all of it, and started combing the long black hair, until it streamed smoother than silk, softer than satin; perfect and gleaming, in the glorious fall of silky raven. She then artfully raised the hair up at the back of Ember's head, tress by tress, holding them as firmly as she could, until she could stuff in a round, heavy silver comb incrusted with garnets and sapphires. When she was finished, she added the jewellery: a river of garnets and rubies at the milky throat, silver charm bracelets of the finest artwork, and earrings that cascaded in a rain of crimson gems that glittered in the craggy chiselling of their savage beauty down to her shoulders.

When she was finished, Gold, immensely satisfied, stepped back, and then dragged Ember to a full-length mirror.

The effect, Ember had to admit to herself, was remarkable: the corset was perfect, and fitting to the perfection, the skirts, falling in layers ended by splendidly ragged edges was royal and wildly majestic, the black under-dress that showed at the top of the corset, veiling the bosom from top to bottom and baring only the beginning of a pure throat, was adorned with many graceful folds, and the hairstyle was simply magnificent: three quarters of the hair had been raised tress by tress, to form an entanglement of tendrils unequally falling back, so that the hair seemed ragged and superbly so. The comb ruled over the cascade, glittering old silver with the bloody blossoms of garnet and the blue buds of sapphire. Ember felt beautiful, for the first, she really felt beautiful, she felt worthy of admiration: and yet, her heart broke down at the vision of herself, when she thought about how she had been when she had arrived: pale, dark, plain, colourless, lustreless.

And now that she was to go back, she was nearly dying with the sadness of abandoning all she had ever love, and frightened of loosing all she had won.

Ember, suddenly, let go of: 'Pack a bag of books for me if you please and with Opal's authorisation, and bring this and the effect-case down stairs.'

She then ran out of the room, and crossed the whole of the East-Wing, dashing past door after door, and going on down the West-Wing where she finally stopped in mid-corridor. Opening a door, she looked in:

A tidy room normal, in tones of dark and white colours, clean, empty. No effect-case, no personal objects whatsoever scattered around: Ember whipped around, and ran downstairs, where she met Lady Astralee:

'Lady Ember! I have heard you are going! How soon—'

'Where is Drake?' Ember cried at her.

'Lord Drake?' repeated Astralee.

'Whatever!' Ember exclaimed.

'He is gone. He went yesterday evening.'

Ember, stared at Astralee, silent, unbelieving.

'He is—gone?'

'Yes. He went yesterday, not far in the night. He went alone.'

'Why?'

'He didn't say. He just came in, snapped Farewell I must withdraw, and stormed away.'

'Was he angry?'

'More likely angrily sad, I daresay.'

'Oh.'

Ember walked to the Dinning room, silent, broken. She went in, and sat next to Opal, who was speaking to her guests. The room as already half full, and all the people looked joyous and ready for yet another delightful day in Tal's magic.

'Could I borrow one of your coaches?'

'Yes you can. But wait for me before you go. I shall meet you in half an hour down the thirteen steps.'

'Very well,' Ember said tonelessly, and standing up, she departed.

Slowly, deadlike, she went back up, and in her room, calling: 'Crow? Cat?'

None answered.

How bitter. I am going, and shall not see all those I love.

'Gold!'

'Don't cry,' came the soothing murmur.

Ember, bursting in sobs and tears, collapsed against Gold's shoulder, weeping uncontrollably her eyes out, weeping her whole sorrow, the whole grief of her heart. She cried and cried, and Gold rocked her to and fro and her arms, caressing in long sweeping stroke her silky tendrils, hugging her like a mother.

'Cry, then, my love, cry.'

When she finally stopped, Ember raised her tear stained face towards Gold, who said:

'Child. Realise and understand that all you love, and all that loves you, be it at the other side of the world, beyond death itself, will always be next to you. For the heart in a kind of box, and once you find the key, you can open it as much as you will, and fill it with your love. My love you will always possess.'

She stopped, and stepped back rummaging in a pocket in the folds of her skirt, from which she took out a mirror of silver, carved with the picture of a rose at the back, and shining its glimmery surface in the other. She gave it to Ember.

'A magic mirror. Someone I loved once gave it to me so that we could see each other from far. Then he died, and I retrieved the second one. Ember, if you want to talk to me, at any time, if you feel sad or unhappy, and if you want to catch a glimpse of Tal, look in it say whatever you wish to see, or say. If you want to speak to me, tell my Soul name, and we will be able to communicate.'

'I don't know your soul name,' said Ember, her voice hoarse from crying.

'Yes you do,' Gold replied.

Ember slipped the small mirror between the corset and her under-dress, and then hugged Gold against.

'Farewell, young Ember.'

And then, Gold added:

'Will you give me a present I long for?'

'What sort of present, dearest Gold?' said Ember sadly.

'I will only beg one thing: that you may shine with all the talents that I always admired in you, and dazzle this unworthy, rotten, cursed family of yours.'

'So asked Opal,' Ember murmured, 'I don't want to do it! But I will, for I love you, Gold, and all that you ask me, you shall have.'

The two of them hugged one last time.

'I'll miss you.'

'So will I. But we have the mirrors.'

'Ember.'

'Gold.'

'Don't forget me.'

'I shan't.'

'Farewell.

'Never.'

They parted, Ember dizzy with bitter sadness and unbearable grief. She went back down, but at the last minute, turned around, and went back up, running through corridors and staircases until she reached the piano room. There, she went to the tapestry, and kissed each figure, and then turned to the piano itself. It was standing peaceful, quiet and glossy in the semi-darkness, and on is shiny lid, two things lay: a red rose, spiky with sharp thorns, and a white envelope.

Ember went to pick the rose, and slipped it against her heart, closing her eyes as she felt the thorns sink in her skin. Then she took the letter, and opened it, reading from an old, torn piece of parchment the words in unequal, spiky writing:

'You came, and brought me serenity.

For the love of all those I lost,

And through death

I love you,

Farewell.'

Ember caught a shuddering breath, and took out the last thing from the envelope. It was very small dagger, fine, and of such a pale silver it seemed white. Around the blade, carved nearly too thin to be seen, a coiling rose, its petals opening to separate he pommel from the blade, both thin and fine beyond imagination.

Ember, sighing, smiling through the tears that had started falling against, slipped the dagger at the top of her right stocking, so that the blade, cold like a finger of death, could catch the warmth of her white flesh. Then she folded the letter, and slipped it next to the mirror in her corset.

And then she went back downstairs, after having played a small tune of farewell to the room and the two reaching lovers. She went downstairs, and walked slowly down the beautiful corridor, wishing she could have left it when in its savage look, like when she had first arrived. Each pace she took towards the door, and the carriage, seemed heavier, and more difficult. When she reached the door, her face was pale, ghastly so, and her eyes, huge, dark grey in her thin face, were wells of sorrow in which she seemed to be drowning herself.

Breathing slowly, shuddering, with the feeling of slowly tearing herself apart, she walked past the beloved threshold. Like a condemned queen, she walked down the thirteen steps, and her face grew paler. Opal was waiting for her.

Silently, she stretched out her arms, herself pale, with her long white hair falling freely down her sad face, and Ember went to snuggled up to her slim body, starting to cry, her heart breaking slowly, and the sobs racking her body in silence, even though se felt like screaming to the death, screaming her voice out, screaming her grief to the world until she was hoarse with it, or dead. And her soul, inside her body, screamed, and her mind screamed, and her heart, tired of screaming, was already silent, broken.

'Ember, my child. My love. Ember,' whispered Opal, rocking the sobbing body tenderly, as Gold had done, 'Ah how sad. How wicked how bitter.'

Ember cried even harder.

'Ember, I love you. You are the daughter I never shall have, and never had. You lit up my life, without knowing it. You made of me someone real. I discovered an orphan, I took it to my breast, and now they tear it away.'

Ember stopped crying, slowly, and suddenly, taking Opal's face between her hands, she kissed both the smooth cheeks.

'Opal. They are not my parents. Opal, they are not my family. Opal, you are my mother. Opal, I love you, and I belong to you, and only to you. Opal, I shall go back, as they wish, and I shall wipe their cruelty off their face with my own disdain and hate. _Opal, one day, I shall seek you out and find you_.'

She stopped.

'Opal,' she said finally, 'I shall never forget you. You, and Tal, Gold, the Cat and the Crow, you shall all be my only reason to go on.'

Ember finally stepped away. Opal, wiping a crystal tear out of her emerald eye, reached down in a fold of her skirts, as Gold had done earlier, and took out a chain long and made of elaborate silver runes, hung with a small, perfect opal, the shape of an egg cut in two in the side of length. On the smooth side, a face was carved, so fine, so chiselled, it looked nearly alive.

'You,' said Ember in a whisper.

'Yes. Me. Carved by—someone I loved. As much as you.'

'Opal, I have nothing to give you. I am ashamed.'

'You gave me your heart, and all I could ever wish to have from a daughter. Ember. One thing. Please—I need to know that you will…will remain the princess you are, so that they may see…that you may…prove them wrong in there disdain towards you.'

Ember, savage:

'I shall!'

And she hugged Opal one last time, sweet-savage, and delicately kissed her cheek.

'Opal. Farewell. I love you.'

'So do I. And forever. Farewell.'

**Requiem Sans commentaire. Sorry for writing in French, though, anyway. I just ask you to review. I have nothing else much to say, except that you have the obligation to review. Because if you don't…I'll I'll, like…Send an army of bloodthirsty harpies and horrible monsters etc etc, well you see what I mean: review**!


	6. Chapter 6

**Prelude Dear reader, and apology. (I don't say "I apologize". Nothing is less original than actually apology. The way I say: "An apology," however, is far better: you know: an apology, I toss it in your face, pick it if you want or be damned.)**

**Sorry, sorry, I was just kidding, I swear. I meant: sorry for not having updated this story lately, and by the came occasion, and to the readers of Spider's Heir, I am very, very sorry of not having updated this story too, though I promised I would give you at least three chapters before the next week. Sorry sorry sorry. But I just started my year 10, and my teachers have all deluged me under books and homework that will save me from the terrifying GCSEs (the mere name make my hands tremble and my mind scream for freedom…) anyway, I hope you all forgive me, and I wish you all a very happy new school-year (though how can any new school-year be happy, for anyone else but me, that is?) Anyway: read on. Oh, and…Review.**

**Chapter the Sixth**

**Avalanche**

Gold had filled the bag with many things. First, it was a thick, elegant bag, and large, in fact too large. The bag was a bottomless bag. Inside, without even being crammed, had been stored: a dozen thick volumes, a great, impossibly elegant fan of painted silk, silver and black, with a bundle of black and white feathers, talismans of silver and carved jet. Then there was a pack of food; bread, fresh fruits, dry salted meat, some light apple cider and a handful of sweets. Then a pack of cards, enchanted ones, a box of writing paper for letters, with a little bottle of ink and three quills. And finally a thick portfolio. Ember opened it, and discovered a whole collection of portraits. As she fingered through them, she realised they had all been made by Gold herself. The beauty of the drawings, all in pencil, was stupefying. The first portraits where of people Ember didn't know, and then, portraits of Opal started: representing only her face, quiet and serene and dreamy, or sad and downcast, or joyous and laughing; then a whole collection of pictures representing Opal dancing unleashed, Opal reading in a sofa, Opal sleeping, Opal dreaming at a window, Opal in different dresses, from simple nightdress to fantastic ball gown.

Then, there were portraits of Gold herself, strangely accurate, but always in the same posture: holding up a child, with her long glossy brown hair streaming down and lightly puffed by a breeze of joy. Ember, looking down carefully, peered at the child's face: it was enlightened by a small smile, and the whole child had an air of feebleness about him, dressed in the short white shirt. Gold herself was always dressed in a pale dress with short, hanging sleeves, and was sitting on a window-sit. The portraits were faithful, and bore a light sadness in them. Ember thought: oh, she never told me about the child.

Then the pictures changed, and it was only after a few pages that Ember realised all of them represented her: quiet and withdrawn, with the hair long and dark down her pale face, merry, with laughers lighting her face like a sweeping light and hair flying back, sleeping sweetly, dancing with grace and vigour, or dreamy and sorrowful. Ember dressed for the ball and entering the ballroom stealthily, Ember leaning against a barrister, Ember reading, Ember riding on Night, Ember speaking animatedly with Opal, Ember embroidering, Ember grave, Ember sad, Ember happy, Ember dreamy, Ember thoughtful, Ember angry, Ember hateful, and always, in every single picture, Ember faithfully represented and infinitely beautiful.

The corner of Ember's lips rose into a smile as she looked at each picture, and she suddenly stopped at one of the last ones: it represented her at a window, her elbows on a stone sill, and her shin in her hands, looking away with eyes filled with such real sadness the picture seemed real. The resemblance of all the pictures were, in fact, striking: better that a mirror.

Ember spent the first half of the journey looking at the pictures, pausing at some for quarters of hour altogether to skip some ten pages, and then go back before. Then she told herself she shouldn't spoil all the interest by examining all the pictures in one day, so she pulled it back in the magic bag, and took out the first volume on which she could put her hand: a treasure of Quelimclaron's poetry.

Ember smiled. Of all the poets she really loved, Quelimclaron was really her favourite.

'_Ballad of a lost heir:_

_She rose away from her dark misery,_

_This frail child, _

_With the mere treasure of a faded memory,_

_Sad and wild._

_She lost all she loved, and never wept,_

_She kept searhing, and never slept,_

_She rose in the glory,_

_Of her black misery._

_From me my heart,_

_You tore—_'

Ember suddenly stopped reading, and looked up form the tome she held with both hands. Ah, her heart too had been torn away too.

Ember sat back in the soft cushions, letting go of her thoughts, letting them fill her mind. The sadness, she felt, had wearied her feelings, and as she lay in the cushions of velvet, she felt nothing, but the wish to destroy, to take her revenge over the family she hated. She eventually fell asleep.

She dreamt of the Blue Ballroom. Opal, all in white, was dancing like an angel upon the blue flagstones, light and sad and merry at the same time. Ember was standing at the door, and looked at her, hugging to her heart something she had to look down to identify. As her eyes met the thing, and that she realised at the same time in her dream and in her conscience, Ember started awake.

'Drake!'

Ah, he had stabbed her heart. And then stabbed it again, and then again. And then he had torn it to pieces, and enjoyed it. Ah, he had broken her, like the others, he had added a strike of his own knife into her body.

'Drake!'

He had gone, and left her in her misery, alone and sad. Ah, so lonely now. So empty.

'Drake!'

Oh, he had made her his, and then had torn both apart. And by doing this he had made her his even more, and he knew it.

They finally reached Earthenstar at dusk. The sun, lowering behind a pale horizon, left theatrically, leaving behind a trail of bright orange, pink, and followed by the triumphant starry azure of night's velvet. The coach pulled to a halt, and the coachman, a silent man from a faraway village, came to open Ember's door.

Her family was standing before the house, waiting anxiously.

Lord Ewan Firestar was tall, and slim, with a long, gaunt face, lit by no colour. His eyes were of a blue monstrously pale, his mouth limp and narrow, his hair lank and grey-blond. He was dressed in pale blue, in a beautiful, elegant suit. Next to him, Lady Ink Firestar was tall, also, and even if slim, she had a slightly fleshy air. Her face, tallowy, possessed the wrecks of an ancient beauty, but her eyes were by far too pale, like her husbands'. Her hair, still dark blond, was plaited in a long braid tied with blue ribbons. Like her husband, she was dressed in pale, blue, in a silk dress that bared her lovely shoulders.

A little bit farther, Ember's sister, Treasure, was standing, straight and noble: her splendid curls of dark blond hair fell in a halo of gold around her beautiful face. Her large, glittery blue eyes were strangely gleaming. She was dressed in a long, dark fuchsia dress that bared her arms and back, and fell in neat folds down her legs. Behind her, her husband was dressed in blue, very elegant, with his dark hair wavy, and his lecherous eyes bored. Their daughter, a girl of eleven, was standing outrageously straight and dignified, all in a pale silky pink, with her blond curls nearly as silky.

Yet further, a few friends of the family, Lady Bluebell Winther, a fat, cheery-cold duchess, Lord Marcus Reptsemi, a tall, serpentine man, with a long of constant hunger on his pale thin face, and some others Ember had forgotten.

Ember, not even looking at any of them, hopped lightly down, and ordered:

'Take my effects to my apartments, and you can retire. Here for your service,' she added, taking from a small cashmere purse in her corset three pieces of gold.

'The Lady Opal already gave me,' said the man, surprised by the excessive generosity.

'Stop talking nonsense,' said Ember.

She had forgotten how hot it was. She unfolded her fan and started whipping it to and fro for some wind. Leaving all her effects in the coach, trusting for the good coachman to take them all to her rooms, she advanced to her family.

Lord Ewan walked a few paces forward. The look on his face was one of total disbelief.

'Welcome back among us, my daughter. I can see you have grown,' he said solemnly.

'Can you?' Ember retorted, still walking, 'how flattering.'

She walked past him, and stopped a few seconds before her mother, the time to say:

'Your warm welcomes touch me to the heart Mother.'

Without letting her time to reply, she walked past, flinging to her sister.

'Close your mouth Treasure. Lest flies come in.'

And she disappeared in the house, leaving her family to follow her, which they did slowly, not recovering from the utter bewilderment.

Ember, each second that passed with her heart-beats, felt hate grow. She hated them, she hated them, she hated them, and felt she would go on hating them even more every minute.

Earthenstar was more of a castle than a mansion: consisting in one main building, and two huge donjons at each side. Made in ancient marble-like grey-blue stones, with its façade pierced by the straight rows of large rectangular windows, spiked with stone chimneys and roofed of antique chalky-blue tiles, Earthenstar had nothing in common with the dark gothic beauty of Tal's glamorous decay. The main corridor was vast, with a clean white floor, and tall opened doors all along the walls, which were decorated with portraits, faithful, yet wan to Ember's eyes, of ancient Firestar family members.

As she walked up this clean, clear corridor she new so well, Ember told herself: it is not my home. It doesn't look like it.

She stopped, whipping around to face her parents.

'Well then,' she said coldly, 'Will someone ever show me to my apartments?'

'Allow me to call for Cotton. She will take you to your rooms, were you will be able to rest and refresh yourself,' said Lord Ewan, awkwardly.

Ember, looking at his lank face, triumphed in her heart. He, who had always been a cold, imperious father, was awkward in front of her. Ah, he obviously couldn't believe that she was his very daughter. This girl, so dignified and cold, with her splendid raven hair and milky skin, walking like a queen of Olden days, had nothing in common with the small, thin young girl he had dumped at the other side of the country as far as he could away from him and his illustrious family.

Cotton, a young maid with silvery-blond hair and the reputation of having for a time warmed the bed for Lord Ewan, trotted in the room, praying Ember to follow her upstairs, where she took her to the very end of the West-wing, to the left tower's blue-painted wooden door.

'The Lord Firestar had recommended that this tower should be to your own, entire disposition for as long as you shall dwell here.'

'I thank you, Cotton. Please send me my effects.'

'Very well, my Lady.'

Cotton retired after giving Ember a heavy iron key, and Ember unlocked the door, stepping in before locking the door behind her. The room in which she had just stepped was a mere circular boudoir, with two small rectangle windows at right and left, and some dusty tapestries. The colour blue, silvery because of the dust, was intensely present in this room, reminding Ember of the Blue Ballroom in which she had spent so many hours with Opal exploring the highs of the perfection of dancing. A few armchairs, of old, dusty blue velvet, scattered with silvery cushions and standing near several small rose wooden table which's reach glossy colour had been slightly erased by the thick velvety dust. A blue china vase, perfect of shape and texture, held a bouquet of long withered flowers. A white bear rug lay on the stone floor, and that was all. Two doors, one at the right of the door from which Ember had just come, one at the left, each next to one of the two small windows, rose in an old, blue-painted wood.

Ember, each of her steps raising small clouds of dust that whirls like tiny snow blizzards, went to the first door, the one at her right, and opened it. The key, heavy and deeply carved, was in the lock, and she turned it with difficulty and many a creaking, opened the heavy blue panel upon a narrow winding staircase plunged into the dark. Climbing up, her feet sinking into a constant and thick carpet of the same rich, ancient velvety dust, she went up, and opened a door, which sung easily on its hinges, revealing a bed-chamber. Circular, like all the rooms, with one large window opening upon a narrow marble-like terrace, the room was furnished in the same blue and ancient way: a canopy bed adorned with rich blue velvet curtains, and covered in a thick white fur that trailed upon the ground and was covered in still the same rich dust as everywhere else up this tower. A small, rose-wooden dressing-table, covered in dusty flacons and vials, was standing opposite the bed, between two tall wardrobes of the same rich wood. An armchair, scattered with deep cushions, was standing next to a small round table supporting a pile of ancient books in front of the narrow and deep fireplace, in which a real heap of dust was gathered. On the floor, the same white-bear rushes were standing, under the thick carpet of luxurious dust.

Ember, after a few moments detailing the room, went to open the large window, and stand on the terrace. The night had already fallen outside, stars glittering like tiny splinters of pure diamond upon the azure satin canopy, and the moon, a pale, gleaming, utterly perfect silver crescent, was climbing in the night. The birds were no longer singing, and a perfect serenity was ruling over the flat plains that surrounded Earthenstar, which shone like a palace of iridescent opal in the darkness.

Ember, after breathing in the fresh air, went back in the dusty chamber, and immediately started to shake the bed's curtains, and then dragged the cover rush at the terrace, balancing it on the trail to expose it to the fresh breeze. Quickly, using a piece of cloth she found in on the drawers of the dressing-table, she started sweeping the dust form the furniture, throwing everything on the floor, deciding to ask Cotton to come to sweep it out on the morrow. When she estimated she had cleaned enough to pass the night there, Ember went back in the lounge, and straight to the second door. It climbed up too, but higher than the first one. The room was a kind of study, with the round walls covered in bookcases filled with chaotic books. A large desk was enthroned in the middle of the room, with a tall leather chair behind it, and covered in stacks of parchment, scattered quills of all sizes and colours, and bottles of ink. The single window was tall but narrow, and the only place where no bookcase filled the void. No fireplace was there, and a fresh, ancient cold reigned in the room. Ember, after opening the window, went back down, deciding she would tidy later, and sat down to wait for Cotton to bring back her effects.

The girl arrived very soon, carrying the case in one hand and the hand bag in her bag, looking utterly overwhelmed and puffing loudly.

'I am sorry, my Lady, for taking so long. Mistress Porcelain retained me,' she apologized as she thankfully deposed her burden on one of the tables.

'It's all right, Cotton. I shall ask you one last thing before you can retire for the day.'

'My lady is very kind. But the dinner is about to be served, and I will be able to retire only after midnight when all the washing and cleaning will be done,' Cotton said, trying but failing to look brave and not desperate at all.

'Never mind that. Porcelain will be able to do it herself. Go and fetch a broom and some clean water with soap. Wash as much as you can of the dust. Be quick, and if Mistress Porcelain retains you or complains in any way, come and tell. I shall do the necessary. If she threatens you, come also, I shall deal with this personally. Now go and be diligent.'

'Thank you, my lady, thank very much,' said Cotton, surprised by such generosity and kindness in a young girl so cold.

She hastily went off, and was back the time Ember carried her affects up and went back down. She was carrying two string brooms, a full bucket of clean, steaming water, a pack of soap, a brush and a pile of dishcloth. Putting everything down, she curtseyed, and announced:

'My Lady, the dinner is served.'

'Really? Well, clean away, my child, for I would strongly desire that those three rooms would be clean ere I come back.'

'Yes my Lady, I shall do my very best.'

Cotton curtseyed, and stared at Ember as she went off, thinking at how strange such a young girl, such a distant and aloof youthful person, could hide such contrasts in such a small person. She smiled.

Ember, sweeping down corridors, walked fast, her small shoes dry and quick on the stone floor. Around her, servants she met curtseyed or bowed, and all looked positively overwhelmed. Ember didn't pay attention.

When she arrived at the dining room, the whole family was already present, seating, and chatting while waiting for her to come. Lord Ewan, dignified in his blue garment, looked also slightly tense. Next to him, Lady Ink, thoughtful and unnerved, was dreamily playing with a coil of ash-blond hair. Treasure, entirely sure of her beauty, but disturbed by the one, so totally the opposite, the sister she didn't recognised had developed, was chatting with Lady Bluebell, who, totally unconcerned, as cheery-cold as ever in her beautiful blues, queenly in her majestic fatness, was utterly relaxed. Lord Ebony, between his daughter and his wife, looked bored, and was staring with gleaming eyes at a young serving woman, whose buxom body rolled in a halo of gold around his lecherous mind. His daughter, as unconcerned as Lady Bluebell, was sitting straight and silent, her eyes half closed. Lord Reptisemi, next to another guest, was talking in his drawling, hiss-like voice, and was looking cold and feeling-less.

The place reserved for Ember was between Avalanche and Lord Reptisemi. She sat down, cold and frostily polite, and the dinner began. A meal, of delicious roasted potatoes, with a rich fine soup and some exquisite salty meat was served by the buxom serving woman, and Ember had to admit it was all very well. But her heart twisted so hard when she thought this meal she could have spent it with Opal—talking about some very well-known poet or playing chess, in the middle of the cloud of bats and moths, with the casual myriad of impossibly delectable epicure tossed over the massif table—that her whole body retched.

'Are you all right?' asked Lady Ink.

'As well as I could wish,' Ember replied coolly.

Her hand had been grasping the opal pendant so hard the face had printed on her palm. Heaving a shuddering breath, Ember started to eat again.

'Well then,' said Lady Ink, trying to engage the conversation, 'How were those few years in the Grey-Lands?'

'Entertaining, for an exile,' said Ember.

Bluebell, as if she had heard nothing of it, thrust herself:

'Talking of Grey-Land, my dear Ink, I forgot to tell you something that happened to me there long ago. I always intended to ask your advice, but as my mind is always filled with things I need to ask your advice about, it always slip out.

'As I was crossing the dreary country to see a faraway cousin of mine, some astrologer lady of the north, I travelled with two people, two gentlemen of the strangest sort: one said to be a sorcerer, the other, a snake enchanter. Of course, I did not believe them, but their company was very entertaining. Indeed, I even think that instead of charming snakes, one of our gentlemen charmed my daughter, who dreams of snakes every day since she met him—'

As lady Bluebell went on with her endless cheery story, Ember sank into memories. Ah, those long dinners in the dark room, all those meals form which you could take without blushing or waiting for the host to ask you if you want more, those long conversation, Opal, in her heavy dresses of magical cuts and colours. This had been her world, hers and Opal's, a world so faraway from the other one that it seemed more like a dream, from which Ember was slowly waking in the despair of never again being able to achieve it. But then, it could also be the contrary: a nightmare she had had, until she woke up to find herself in the true world, a world of dark colours and secrets, a world of enchantment and strangeness. And now she was sinking back in the nightmare of the beginning, and she wondered if she would ever get the luck to finish the nightmare once and for all and find herself back at Tal, with the dramas and bizarre, with the mystical and incredible Opal, with the incomprehensible Gold and the ironic crow and cat. She longed for those, she longed for them, those she loved, those who had dug a well in her heart, in the hardest rock of ruby, and had filled the well with a love she would cherish till the end of her life. As she ate and dreamed of Tal, her eyes were lowered towards her hand, were the blue star, this tear a ghost had left her for all farewell, this gift of the trust of the spirits of the dead, this gift form Tal itself, from its very soul, so blue, so alive, proving her that it had never been a dream.

'Your nostalgia is indeed of the most contagious sort. You are making me feel all gloomy and sad just by being yourself so sorrowful. Did you leave a sweetheart behind?'

Ember raised her head. Avalanche was looking at her with the glittery blue eyes, softened in an expression of gentle compassion and delicate curiosity.

'No sweetheart. Only…my soul,' Ember said, hesitant.

Avalanche took her hand.

'What is this?' she asked, touching the blue star with her finger.

'I wish you hadn't asked,' Ember murmured.

'I haven't then. I shall respect your secret.'

Avalanche released her hand, and said:

'Tell me about your soul?'

'Would it pain you if I told you I wished you hadn't ask that either?'

'No. You have the right to protect your secrets. If I were you, that would be what I would do.'

Avalanche smiled.

'Tell me then, something you can tell me without breaking any secret you cherish.'

'I wish I weren't here.'

'This is not something new!' protested the girl, 'I can see that, as everyone can see, or rather, saw,' she stopped, and then added: 'Would you wish to be back where you're coming from?'

'Yes. This is true. I wish I would be back there.'

'Are you sure—but answer me only if you want—that you left no beloved behind?'

'I left many beloved, but no gentleman.'

This was a lie. Every second, Ember could feel her heart screaming for Drake, screaming to feel his heart, screaming, craving to have him back, to have him close forever. But then again, she hadn't left him behind. He had left her behind.

Bluebell, as Avalanche and Ember conversed, had finished her story, and the auditory had divided: Avalanche was now talking to her mother about some other young lady she really hated, Lady Ink and Lady Bluebell were exchanging anecdotes, Lord Ewan and Lord Ebony were speaking politics, and Reptisemi was as silent as Ember, who had sank back into her dreams. As she nearly fell asleep, she started up, feeling against her thigh, Reptisemi's. Looking up in his face, she saw the leer in his malicious green eyes, and she froze, but already he'd turned away, and withdrew his thigh. Ember, disgusted, cloyed, sickened to the heart, sat back in her chair. The piece of blueberry pie in her plate brought her heart in her mouth. Silently, she pushed back her plate, and lowered her head, surveying her legs, and her companions'.

Avalanche, having finished with her mother, turned back to Ember:

'Why do you hate them so?'

'Who?' asked Ember, puzzled.

'Your parents. Your sister. Their guests.'

Ember looked down at the pretty, serious clever face, and said, in spite of herself:

'You are beautiful. You are dignified. You are a perfect daughter. Do not think I am saying this to try to divert your attention, or merely playing the hypocrite modest.'

'But, and nether am I trying to flatter you, you are beautiful. You are dignified. You are as straight and magnificent as an Olden queen,' said Avalanche, with deep sincerity.

'You are the first one, and I hope, the last, to tell this to me, but I must tell you that at your age, and even later, up to perhaps seventeen, I was still a freak: I was ugly, my face too pale, and I was awkward. I didn't know anything of the world. Where I was until now, everything changed. I met people who carved me into what I should have been. And I learned to love there. This is why I can see now, all what my family could have done for me, if they had loved me, and this is why I really hate them now.'

Avalanche remained silent, picking up small pieces of the violet fruit and carrying it to her mouth with the tip of her fork. She looked thoughtful, but still, the clever, composed look remained. At ten, Avalanche was far more mature than many girls of fifteen.

When the dinner was finally over, Lord Ewan rose, saying:  
'We would much appreciate if Lady Blue bell, Lord Reptisemi, Lord Cerulear and Lady Ember, would join us to the living room,' he said, as the others rose after him.

'I accept with all my heart, said Bluebell in her cheerfully cold voice, 'Nothing is indeed better for the health than a relaxing conversation around of plate of one of this superb Mistress Candy's delicious sweet-cakes.'

'I shall also accept the invitation,' said Lord Cerulear.

'I would decline the invitation, I am afraid,' said Reptisemi in a low voice, 'I must alas pack, for I am going tomorrow.'

'I am obliged for your generosity my Lord,' said Ember, her tone high and clear, 'But the journey has wearied me. I would enjoy resting.'

'So be it, my lady,' said Lord Ewan, too quickly.

He went out, followed by Lady Bluebell, Lady Ink, Treasure, and then Avalanche and Cerulear; Ember, went out by the door opposite form which they had all gone, and Reptisemi followed her.

'May I take you to your apartments, my Lady?' he asked, bending towards her as she walked out and speaking in her neck, so that she could feel his chilling breath against her pale skin.

'You may not,' she replied, coldly.

He was silent, and they separated in the wide corridor, he going one side, she another. She walked slowly up the stairs and corridors that led to her tower. Opening the door, she caught a strong, fresh smell of violet, and when she came in, she had the surprise to find the room surprisingly clean, no trace of dust left, the furniture shining and clean, and the old withered bouquet replaced by knots of white and amethyst violets. The floor was shining, and both windows were open to let in the night air. It was good to breathe something natural, and relieve her of the disagreeable sent of perfume and cigarette smoke.

Both door at right and left were open, so that a strong draught passed in the stars leading to the bedchamber, tearing back the fall of ragged raven hair as she slowly climbed. Up there, the room too had been cleaned surprisingly well, the floor shiny, and several other bouquets of violets scattered in small crystal vases. The fur she had hung at the terrace was now spread smoothly over the bed, no trace of dust anywhere near the room. It smelled fresh. Cotton, obviously, was a maid. Ember told herself to remember to reward her for the remarkable work.

She went to sit on her bed, on which both her case and her bag had been carefully laid. She sat for a few moments, silent and withdrawn, and then stood up to unpack. Her dresses she hung in one of the wardrobes, and her underwear she laid, after having folded them carefully, in the second wardrobe. The jewellery, combs and other small accessories, she stored in the dressing-table's drawers, and the few books Gold had stuffed at the bottom she laid on the bedside table.

Then she went back to fold her case, folded it, and heaved it on the top of one of the wardrobes, before starting to unpack the bag itself. The books she laid with the others on the little bedside table, the fan and writing gear she placed on the dressing-table, the portfolio she quickly slipped under her mattress, the cards she placed in an empty drawer, and finally the bag she folded and placed up with the case.

When she was finished, she undressed quietly, laying her small treasure on the bed, and her clothes on the back of the dressing-table's chair.

She laid down the small smooth silver magic mirror, and kissed its glimmering surface, then the letter, tucked in her corset, which told her of how she had brought serenity to someone. She laid down corset, tunic, skirts, then stockings, and the rose-dagger, at which she once again marvelled, for its fine beauty. When she was only dressed with her chemise, her hair free and loose down her back, the pins, hair brooches and ruby and silver jewellery on the dressing-table, she took in her hands the two necklaces that still hung against her breasts. The opal carving, perfect and loving, so present, warm and nearly alive form the warmth of her own heart, and then the dragon-moon, this ancient silver medallion, with hung heavy over her heart. She sat back down, looking at them; her eyes narrowed, and tears finally running down her pale face. Opal, and Drake. The two she loved the more. One she had been torn away from, the other had torn himself away.

'Drake…'

His name, whispered in the night. Ah, it had happened. This tale about the girl who was too coward to admit her love, and then sacrificed both her life and his for her cowardice; she had not believed this tale. And he had taken his revenge. He had done the same thing. During a ball, he had taken her, and then, when he had tested her, she had fled, afraid, miserable, small and foolish. And he had gone.

Broken down all over again, she collapsed on her bed, her face in the pillows. All she had ever loved, all had been taken away. She was doomed, she would never be free. She would never live with happiness as she should have. She would never keep what she loved. She wept in her pillows, and wept and wept, her sobs racking her body, and the low screams of protest that her aching heart sent up her throat catching in the tender cloth.

She sat up, tears streaming down her pale face. Slowly, she went to depose the dagger and the letter, with the mirror, in the empty drawer of the cards. She closed and locked the drawer, stuffed the key in the folds of her cushions, and went to put on, instead of her chemise, a long nightdress of black silk. Then she slipped in the blankets, and burying her head in the pillows again, and holding both pendants, dragon and opal, tight in each hand, as if to print the relief of each in each of her palms, again, she collapsed in tears. It seemed, as she wept, thinking of all she loved, that she would go on crying forever. Opal, Gold, Drake, the crow and the cat, which both had not say farewell. She wept new, thinking of those two; she had been frightened of them at the beginning, and had learned to love them in spite of everything. And now they were lost to her, and the last thing she had told them was to go away. She went on crying, growing tired of crying, but too tired and sorrowful to stop.

'If you damage my beloved face with all those tears, I swear I am going to rip you to shreds with my very own claws,' came the drawling, jeering voice.

'Her face is not yours,' replied the second voice, reproving and nasal, from behind.

'She belongs to me, so does her face, logically,' retorted the first voice.

Ember raised herself, not quite able to be sure she wasn't dreaming. But the cat, real, sitting straight and majestic, blacker than the black of the night, with its splendid goldengreen eyes glittering like coins of gold fallen in a pool of sludge; and the crow, red eyes like rubies, and standing reproving on the hardboard.

'Oh my loves! Oh my loves!'

Stretching out her arms to receive those two animals she loved to insanity and eternal tears, she cried the words:

'Oh my loves! Oh my loves!'

The cat, supple like a slender shadow, leapt to her, and she caught him, hugging the small warm body to her chest, and crying, wiping her tears against his jet-black fur.

'Told you she was mine,' the cat tossed to the crow.

'Yours, oh yes! Always yours! Oh my love! Oh my love!'

She raised her head, and called:

'Come, crow, I cannot release this small frame I love, but I want your feathers against my cheeks.'

'If you want me to wipe your tears, ask it straightaway. You're as lazy as you are a wheedling little chit.'

But he came down nonetheless. Pressing his small ragged head to her jaw, he murmured in her skin:

'I wouldn't let you go. But I couldn't retain you. I came. Losing you would have been like loosing life all over again.'

'Don't talk nonsense,' purred the cat, burying his wet-nosed head between the folds of Ember's nightdress's neck, and biting the white flesh, 'We don't care about her. She is a pest.'

'I love you,' whispered Ember, hugging the cat to her breast, and the crow to her cheek, 'Don't go. I would die if you went.'

'I now you would. You are mine. I told crow so. He wouldn't believe me. But I expect you to believe me now that you have the proof, eh, crow?'

'She doesn't belong to you,' said the crow, his voice muffled by the luxurious hair in which he had buried his head, 'You belong to her.'

'Probably both,' said Ember, laying back on her side, the two animals pressed to her.

'She belongs to me fully, without any doubt,' the cat said, lying down, and purring roaringly, 'She would rather kill herself than have me go away, wouldn't you?'

'Don't give her bad ideas,' the crow said sharply.

'I'll give her whatever I want,' the cat replied.

Ember, sleepily, added:

'As long as both of you stay with me forever.'

'Hmm. You'll have to give me lots of salty meat,' the cat said, his voice too starting to sound sleepy.

'As long as you kiss me every morning, I'll stay,' the crow said, nestling at the back of her head.

'Trust you to always try to sound nobler than me,' the cat replied, sounding like someone who knows the battle is finished, but still wants to go on.

'That's not so difficult to do,' the crow retorted wittily.

'I expect so. When one cheats, one expects everything to be easy.'

At the sound of their voice, nasal and purry, Ember had finally fallen asleep. The cat, raising his head to peer at her peaceful face, said suddenly:

'You know what? She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld. Including myself.'

'You mean, including me,' the crow replied.

'I think I love her.'

'I am sure we both do,' the crow replied.

It was his last reply before both sank into silence. The cat considered the pale face a long time before closing his eyes, and when he did, he thought:

'I love her.'

**Requiem: must go, see you all.**


End file.
